Symbiosis
by Zaedah
Summary: Santa used a Sharpie. EPILOGUE.
1. Chapter 1

_Because the forecast calls for ANOTHER 20 inches of snow, I pulled out an unposted Christmas story to accompany the scene outside my window. A simple McGee retelling of events..._

* * *

**Symbiosis**

_The thing that sticks a hook in McGee's gaping mouth in the midst of the unannounced programming is that Tony doesn't seem surprised._

Christmas Eve travels past their bleary eyes like a hallucination as the team works the drying angles of a triple murder. The general consensus is that another hour in the office and the bunch of them will drop like shaken grapes from the vine of bureaucracy. But Gibbs ignores the potential casualties, insisting that they pour over what little evidence the CIA has been threatened into releasing, as though the eighth review is the key. The case must be wrapped before anyone is permitted to sleep.

A perilous edge creeps into Ziva's voice as her visceral complaints about a great many things arrive in a fusing of unpleasant languages. McGee sits quietly at his desk, trying to blend into the back wall because a camouflaged target is harder to hit. DiNozzo's patience, a thing of minuscule quantity, is quickly draining as the Israeli rattles on about the futility of designating a holiday that some must work through. Tony's already trying to reign in his own disappointment and every bitter word she expels fuels his unruly fire.

And that's before the mistletoe incident.

A sprig is brought to the room by a well-meaning Abby, garnering a fair amount of eye rolling from the few agents not amused by the girl balancing on seven inches of molded heels. Which is mostly just McGee. The tech pulls him under the greenery to plant a friendly kiss on his reddening cheek, earning Tony's grin and Ziva's astronomical annoyance.

The former Mossad officer assures her partner that he will receive no such holiday cheer from her, to which Tony applies ample snark about her inability to handle him. The intensity of the resulting glares is a prelude to an outburst. McGee prays he can dodge the splatter in time.

Ziva's mood deteriorates as the night scurries toward the Santa-less morning, her snipping gaining traction to the detriment of McGee's kiss-brightened outlook and Tony's approaching crest of frustration. When the Italian finally snaps, threatening to phone in an expose to disqualify her citizenship application, the woman grabs her righteous indignation by the hand and stomps off to the lab.

With carefully disguised sideways looks, McGee watches Tony's jaw tighten as he retrains his focus on a tree-killing stack of bank records. An hour passes with the senior agent's occasional glances to Ziva's desk. At the stroke of three am, DiNozzo rises and leaves McGee to his own devices, which is to silently follow.

If a confrontation is imminent, someone should be nearby to mop up afterward.

A buffet table from a meal only higher-ups had time to enjoy has been temporarily stored in an underused hallway, sitting before double windows that let the early fingers of morning stretch into the building. Ziva perches on the edge, her feet dangling as she watches the sleeping world absorb the first sprinkling of a wintry mix. Tony waits at the entrance of the hall and when Ziva turns to him, McGee ducks into a doorway, out of view. But not before he witnesses an apologetic smile rob her features of the sternness she's carried all day. Peeking again, Tim watches her pull something small from behind her back.

Mistletoe.

When it's held suggestively over her head, the tense set of Tony's shoulders eases. He moves to her, stopping between her knees. In one fluid motion, Ziva's free hand rises to the shadows of his unshaven jaw before trailing behind his head to guide his lips to hers. He goes willingly, his hands reaching for her hips as he takes everything she offers. Which essentially puts rule twelve to bed.

Her actions not only fail to surprise Tony, but appear to be the entire purpose of his search.

The writer in McGee settles for languid to describe the scene. The kiss is slow, deep and far longer than mistletoe mandates. Familiar, as though they do this everyday. Pulling away, Tony whispers something that lights her eyes. Her short response draws his most genuine smile and she seems unable to resist tasting the expression, harder this time with an insistence that leaves three people breathless. The green sprig is dropped in order to free both hands, all the better to pull him closer. Her ankles lock around his calves and Tim has to blink away the blush of the increasing intimacy of their contact.

The partners have established some sort of symbiosis.

How long, Tim couldn't guess but they've certainly achieved a level of thoroughness that comes with practice. Does anyone else _not _know this is going on? Lacking the malice that she'd displayed during daylight hours, Ziva releases Tony with sizable reluctance, eyes glowing with a freshly brewed pot of want. By their mutual irritation with the prolonged case duty, they'd likely had plans, as any other couple might, that this case has interrupted.

Fearing the reality of being caught and therefore pummeled, McGee turns to escape, finding his path barred by the boss. Gibbs' weary eyes take in the frequently volatile pair and shrugs. The oft-divorced man can't be bothered to look surprised, an affliction going around lately.

Apparently, oil and water can combine on enough molecular levels to form a workable union.


	2. Chapter 2

_I appreciate the kind response to chapter one. McGee was too much fun to torment to end it there. I do hope this conclusion satisfies...  
_

* * *

**Symbiosis**

**2**

_The last safe breath Timothy McGee will take today exhales a grievous error._

According to his internal statistics, the afternoon already ranks at number four on his list of all-time excruciating days, a tangle of hours spent in laborious processing of a darkly lit research facility modeled after Dr Frankenstein's brand of sinister interior design. There simply should not be iron manacles hanging near microscopes. Worse, McGee's spent much of the day being wrong. Protesting the innocence of a computer programmer is a matter of occupational pride, though he'd been alone in his gut assessment and, it turns out, for good reason. That McGee incorrectly read the suspect hasn't gone unnoticed by the senior field agent, something Tony is compelled to mention as the men walk through the narrow halls, lugging hardware and samples toward the exit.

Ziva's already out the door, calling Gibbs with what little information they've gleaned from the stainless steel wonderland that is Inogence. Other than the programmer's total and utter guilt.

"Don't worry, Probie." Tony smirks as he sets down the massive server that has cut off circulation in his arms. "I'm sure she'll leave out your impressive college thesis on Teslin's innocence."

"Be nice," McGee grumbles, stopping as well to adjust his grip on the sample-burdened field kit. "Or I'll tell Gibbs about you and Ziva."

It's harmless really, since Gibbs already knows these two are all-stars in the tonsil hockey league. Which is why his body's abrupt relocation against the nearest wall shocks him into dropping the heavy case. His breath is forcefully evicted from his lungs as Tony's fingers wind around the fabric at McGee's neck. The dangerous glare pins the smaller man just as much as the strong forearm flattening his back along unforgiving plaster.

"One word and you'll be unrecognizable when I'm done."

The man currently holding a rather fragile life in hand is every inch a hardened cop and McGee nods for all he's worth. Satisfied, Tony's hand drops and Tim nearly buckles in relief, his palm covering the evidence of a malfunctioning heart. Ziva backtracks through the hall in time for her partner to brush past her. She must have seen the same murderous storm in Tony's eyes that had frozen Tim because she stalks to the gasping man and positions herself directly in his line of escape.

"What did you do?"

While he hates to repeat the apparently offensive statement, her militant stance leaves no option. She might be the lesser of the evils at present.

"I just said I'd tell Gibbs about you two. I mean, I didn't know he'd take it so…" The tempest picks up in her depths and he's backpedaling. "N-not that I know anything to tell, of course."

Holding up a slender hand that needs no weapon, Ziva takes a cleansing breath before addressing the future corpse.

"Whatever threat he leveled at you, believe it. And should you survive, I will make you wish you hadn't."

She departs, taking McGee's security with her.

Sluggishly managing the mechanics of forward motion, McGee makes his way to the exit. A hand lingers at his throat, the collar irreparably wrinkled from aborted asphyxiation. Back in his genuine probie days, Tim had been intimidated by Agent DiNozzo and that first impression is quick to resurface. He peers out the exit door, accosted by a heavy wind swirling beneath the awning.

The attacker and his lady stand by the nondescript vehicle's hood and while they maintain a professional distance, it's clear that only the recollection of a loitering third party keeps them from falling upon each other. With the protection of a thick pole and a dose of audible straining, Tim catches the tones of their quiet conversation.

"I shouldn't have done that," Tony's voice softens in the dying embers of anger.

"I would have done worse." There's a faint smile which eases a fraction of her partner's tension. "I cannot fault your act of chivalry."

"We have to be more careful," he admonishes her and himself simultaneously. "Your mistletoe gets ahead of our common sense and now I'm nearly strangling people."

Straightening, Ziva ignores the windmill turns that her hair is performing in the breeze. "I doubt McGee knew anything when he made that comment. We have been careful."

"Maybe, but my reaction wasn't exactly subtle." Clearly disappointed in his lack of control, Tony stares twin holes into the pavement. "He knows now. And I don't know if we can trust him not to tell Gibbs."

For all that the sentiment stings, it's difficult to drum up offense while hiding behind a barrier to eavesdrop. Again.

Ziva's arms spread wide in challenge to the wind itself. "And what if he does? What can they truly do?"

"They'll separate us, Zi," Tony declares as though it explains the curve of the earth. "I don't like lying to them but we don't have much choice unless you want to go back to Israel while I'm shipped off to the polar region." He casts an exasperated glance around the car. "And where the hell is he?"

Backing up to the exit, McGee grabs his gear and the abandoned server, then walks the gallows path to the waiting agents, affecting nonchalance. It's not a bad performance, though not up to DiNozzo's standard of illusion. The pair is deep enough in their own moment that they simply allow him to claim a spot in the backseat, piling gear into a hastily constructed fort. The ride back consists of Ziva's unanswered calls to the lab owner and Tony's mildly distracted driving.

He could just tell them that the silver-haired Sherlock has already deduced their rule-breaking relationship. He could request that the next wall Tony shoves him through comes with padding. He could hint at the benefit of a comb for Ziva's wind-mangled locks. He could but he won't. Because Tony's checking the rearview mirror and McGee sees the formation of another threat dangling from the man's frowning lips.

So he doesn't anticipate the following words:

"I'm sorry, McGee."

As a flawless double-take is executed to the detriment of Tim's neck, Ziva turns to the driver, who actually signals before changing lanes unlike his abrupt merger into this conversation. McGee's considered responses range from 'damn right' to 'say what?' but opts for neither.

Silence earns fewer bullets.

"This is important to us," Tony explains. "I need you to understand that."

"I do," McGee rushes to assure. "And not just because you threatened me, though that was pretty potent."

Ziva trains her eyes on the industrial scenery sailing by. "Discovery could put us on different hemispheres, which would be… inconvenient."

"Yeeeah," McGee draws. "I don't think that's likely."

When the car is slammed to a stop at a green light, the honking of surrounding vehicles taking evasive maneuvers becomes the soundtrack to McGee's nerves. Throwing the car into park, Tony unlatches his safety belt to turn in his seat.

"What does that mean?"

Looking from one slightly panicked agent to the other, McGee bites his lip hard enough to break skin.

"He, ah… already knows."

"That is impossible," Ziva maintains. "You will note that we are still alive."

Tim shrugs. "Even the boss must've seen it's too late to untangle you two. You guys are like… symbiotic."

Tony looks down and McGee's not sure if he's expected to provide a definition for his description. Scientific words aren't really DiNozzo's thing. But it's Ziva who's staring at him blankly.

"What does this 'symbiotic' mean?"

Tim pulls an answer straight out of Webster's but Tony cuts him off, taking her chin in his hands. "Means a combining of extremely different individuals into something that works."

And suddenly McGee's an up-close observer of a very private moment because when these two look that deeply into the other's eyes, he's sure they're seeing the core of absolutely everything. And he blinks in envy.

"I like that," Ziva whispers, then reaches past Tony to plant a commanding smack on McGee's already tender head. "That is for not telling us Gibbs knows. And this," a second blow is delivered, "is for spying on us."

Sputtering, McGee rubs his head. "H-how did you know?"

"We didn't, McGullible," Tony supplies, restarting their journey once a patrol car comes into view. "But if you even think about doing it again, we'll go symbiotic on your ass. Got it?"

And visions of being tag teamed to a terribly slow death fuel McGee's dreams for long nights thereafter.


	3. Chapter 3

**Who knew McGee would be such a delightful POV? I thank the returning readers, welcome the new ones and donate a million chocolate chip cookies in your name...**

* * *

**Symbiosis 3**

_ The snark is now a form of public foreplay._

Though informed that Gibbs is in full awareness of their secret romance, Ziva and Tony don't advertise. McGee, having spent entire cases dodging the long reach of Tony's ego, had expected the handy section of the man's vanity to construct an enormous billboard, resplendent with flashing lights and possibly fireworks, to announce the fact that the half dozen years of almost-nearly has concluded with a definite. The sign would declare 'this one's mine' or some other caveman proclamation. But no. Slyness is their game.

For the most part.

Because on days like today, when the prospect of wrapping a case in a timely fashion is as likely as Abby sporting a nun's outfit for reasons other than Halloween, the bullpen becomes dense with verbal orgasms. The cause is a potent mix of two agents who are, by nature, competitive to the point of juvenile and two people who are, by the hour, growing antsy for private time. It's like watching inmates who stare at countdown clocks, waiting for the stroke of _right_ _now_ for their release.

Everyone from the secretaries to the janitors knows that when they head to the restrooms at staggered intervals, it's not the result of too much coffee. McGee watches the play transpire now, Ziva rising from her seat with the look-both-ways of a child crossing the freeway and moves toward the lavatory with all the disinterest she can muster.

Nothing to see here.

Except what McGee sees is her entry into the men's room, where DiNozzo disappeared just moments ago. It's not subtle, but since it's no longer a secret they're displaying just enough propriety to keep from rubbing the beauty of their union in the noses of those who are considerably less fortunate. McGee is trapped between embarrassment and envy, neither particularly welcome but at least when they've gone elsewhere to play, he can actually get some work done.

He knows what they're doing in there.

Or suspects. Or imagines. It's the last one that bothers him. Because McGee is aware that whatever his imagination cooks up for Lisa and Tommy, it's likely trifling compared to the real thing. His own experiences lacking… creativity, Tim tries terribly hard not to picture what might be transpiring in a room meant for equally primal things. Though Ziva returns entirely presentable and Tony appears in no way disheveled, there's something swimming in bright eyes that shows there was wall scrubbing involving entirely the wrong anatomical parts.

Three hours later and the case hovers in a holding pattern while tests are run, leaving McGee time to sit before his old-fashioned typewriter. For all the material that recent events have provided, he is awash in blank. Every time he summons the picture of the mistletoe moment, he feels Gibbs breathing down his neck. Each time he imagines their quiet talk outside the research lab, he chokes with the ghost of Tony's fist pressing into his trachea. Despite his many protestations to the contrary, his two protagonists aren't composites based on office personnel. They're replicas for his teammates. Knowing that in a few months, Tony and Ziva will be laying sated in bed together, pouring over the words McGee now chooses, keeps his fingers from shaping letters into words into sentences into something coherent that he can hand to his publisher.

Their sex life is ruining his authorship.

What his muse really wants to type is a detailed transcript of their conversations, weighted with overtones and undercurrent. But the most faithful depiction of their dealings must include the veiled looks, gestures and that thing Ziva does with her hair which results in that thing Tony does with his bottom lip. When the two read McGee's fictionalized account of these tiny but nonetheless scorching details, they'll have printed proof of just how closely they're being watched. Studied. Documented.

Which will earn eight levels of dead.

Several more hours are spent walking away from and returning to the creamy expanse of an empty page and Tim decides that what his next installment needs is less Tisa and more of absolutely anybody else. His fans will simply have to respect the new direction of the series.

The problem, it seems, is that his source material has lost much of their tension, which is what made them so compelling. Oh, they're still fascinating, but now it's a game to see how far they can go without actually admitting to the relationship. Now it's an office pool to see when A) Ziva will show up with a ring on her finger or B) when Tony will cheat on the fearsome ninja. Now it's a season of peace and what passes for domestic happiness with two people who have long believed such a thing impossible. He's happy for the symbiotic state of impossible things.

He just can't write about it.

"Hey, McShakespeare," Tony greets the following morning. "When's the next book coming out?"

_Maybe if you fight with Ziva_, McGee thinks, _it'll come out faster._

"Plot's a little thin right now." Tim settles for what is essentially true. Thin is a fine explanation for what does not exist. "Needs some more fleshing out."

"We gave you writer's block, didn't we?" It's nearly sympathetic and scary in its accuracy.

"Not at all," Tim says as Ziva enters the pen with a coffee in hand for her… are they too old to use boyfriend/girlfriend labels? "Hey, what do you guys call each other?"

Tony's brow furrows at the question. "Well, I call her ninja and she calls me…" he sips the steaming java. "That's actually classified."

"I am not opposed to fiancé." Grinning, Ziva holds up her hand. The left one. Which is burdened by what McGee could only describe as the Rock of Gibraltar in silver.

And damn it, he just lost twenty bucks in the pool.


	4. Chapter 4

_The saga continues because I haven't been able to put McGee back in his cage. Please enjoy responsibly...  
_

* * *

**Symbiosis**

**4**

_White hot anger, a feeble writer's cliché, is now a description bounding toward insufficient._

Every dawn comes with its own unique challenges and Tim McGee's refrigerator magnet, a square practically welded to the door by his sister, reminds him to embrace them. But he also finds that every new set of twenty four hours comes with its own habits. For instance, some days he can't quell the thirst for Yoo Hoos. Some days call for silent and repeated recitations of soothing Elton John lyrics. Some days are filled with meticulous checks of his rather disloyal hairline.

And some days are today.

It should be logged in the mythical ledger of the Higher Ups that it's not his habit to oversleep. But he's cuddling slumber as though it has solid mass, the bliss of a cushy new mattress and toasty covers defying the ring of an alarm that simply doesn't appreciate his comfort. While last night's half moon passed over sleeping DC, he'd been engaged in a fit of manic typing, sweating and hyper as a madman, only more productive. Words had come in the yawning hours, beautiful and evocative words that captured the essence of daily Tony/Ziva interaction in such a way that his fictional version ensured the account-brimming cha-ching of a bestseller.

But there's a price to pay for creative ecstasy.

When the first thing one sees upon waking is a message from one's boss time stamped two hours prior, no level of hurry is fast enough. The tone is regrettably familiar; _'waiting on you, McGee.'_ Crime scenes aren't known to be terribly transient but Gibbs prefers his evidence as fresh as his molten lacquer coffee.

The items in his field kit must be reproducing at bunny-rate because it grows heavier with each step toward his destination. At the curb, there is a line of standard vehicles that McGee leaves in his rushed wake, but the population inside seems insufficient for the number of transports. Everyone must have self-driven today. Certainly Tony and Ziva have avoided arriving at any official location together, though for whose sake Tim has yet to discern.

The garage is the sort of nondescript, rundown place every seventies cop show features, except the smell, a rank mix of turpentine, spilled beer and extract of road kill is exponentially worse than portrayed on screen. Finding the silver-topped head of a stern man hovering over a body lacking appropriate length, McGee prepares for the public lashing. That doesn't come.

"Glad you could make it, McGee."

It's delivered in an unperturbed voice, the kind of tone that suggests the speaker has mastered the calm of Zen. Gibbs merely sips his coffee while the faint strobe light effect of rapid photo flash points the way to his customary tormentor, who hasn't bothered to fill the space with snide comments on Tim's time-telling ability. It's all very worrying.

McGee pulls his blue cap further down on his sweating brow. "Sorry, boss."

The apology is lobbed over his shoulder with enough sincerity to avoid the appearance of disrespect. In the past, his stuttering apologies could take eons to express, earning him no more forgiveness than DiNozzo gets when uttering a hasty '_sorry boss_.' Tim has stolen Tony's superbly simple method and he's not giving it back. Stammering is a habit Tim is aggressively striving to drop. Along with those final five pounds.

Tony's gotten back into shape in the last few weeks, looking as trim and chiseled as he had when McGee first started at NCIS. Standing over a legless corpse, McGee orders pale skin to stamp down the blush that the others will cite as adolescent modesty, as the severed stumps and everything else is quite naked. Hardly. He's reddening because he can't ask Tony for pointers on the man's current workout.

It likely involves a veritable quagmire of ninja sex.

The over-exercised pair is huddled at the base of the garage's back wall; she poking at a gash in the plaster and he snapping pictures before giving her the go-ahead to extract the debris. Ziva digs at the jagged slash, producing a small piece of metal and holding it aloft with her pliers.

"I have a broken saw blade," she announces.

Tony studies the economic movement of Ziva's skillful fingers as the nub is bagged and her precise lettering is applied with permanent marker to identify time, place and position. Likely watching the DiNozzo family fortune waving before him in a sparkling silver loop. There is, McGee notices, the continued presence of the ginormous bauble, struggling for space inside a tight latex glove. Three days and no one speaks of the impending matrimony of the two most unsettled people he's ever met. Tim keeps waiting for Abby to craft a daily newsletter for the event, surely a delightfully morbid creation.

Gibbs takes the baggie, eyes narrowing on the fragment while he turns it over in his palm. He looks for all the world like he wants to interrogate it.

"DiNozzo?"

"Question the neighbors," Tony supplies, rising on apparently stiff knees. The how and why of the discomfort will only sidetrack Tim's brain. And then keep him up all night typing.

Gibbs nods to the departing agent before addressing his tardy junior. "Get moving. I want the rest of this saw five minutes ago."

"On it, boss."

And if 'on it' means searching fruitlessly for sixty seven minutes through every closet and crawlspace on the premises, then McGee's got the concept, as well as his pants, covered. The amount of dust he's breathed in will manufacture a dust bunny colony in his throat and when he returns empty-handed, ardent prayers are mumbled under sickened breath for the sinister vermin to kill him. Here. Now. Because they're all waiting expectantly, the soul mates and the gallows master.

"Nothing?" Gibbs can do incredulous in his sleep.

The team waits at the curb for McGee, who's biting back the heartburn of a familiar scenario; he's the kid who forgot his homework. Shrugging, McGee swallows the rambling apology bubbling in amongst the clog in his throat.

"Maybe the killer took it with him. Or ditched it elsewhere."

"Like you ditched your alarm clock this morning?" It only took three hours to show up but Tony's dig is surprisingly gentle, all things considered.

"Couldn't work the buttons last night," McGee mutters as the lid on his field kit is shut gingerly. "I was still too blinded by that audacious ring."

With the expression of a fresh tombstone, Gibbs grabs Ziva's hand and rips the engagement ring from her protesting finger. The mammoth diamond is dropped on the pavement and with a mighty stomp, Gibbs' boot has crushed the expensive jewelry to staggering bits. The Israeli's face slides into something akin to horror while Tony, who must have hocked his car and kidneys to afford it, simply shakes his head at the shattered rubble.

Wait…

"That wasn't a real diamond," McGee fairly shouts over the morning commute in progress. "That was, like…"

"Like," Gibbs interrupts, "rigging the pool."

"Like," Tony sneers, "payback for betting against me."

"Like," Ziva huffs, "deserved for thinking I would accept something that gaudy."

She waves what is now a far lighter hand in disgust, which fans the flames of Tim's almighty righteous anger. It burns now, a wildfire his inner chi tries to focus on the trio of evil beings and their damned rotten, grinning faces. He's shocked entirely and yet not at all. When coasting around life's orbit with people proficient in dishonesty, one must never be surprised, once the game is exposed, that one has been duped, defrauded, swindled and by all other terms spectacularly played. Which leaves only one question.

"So, who won the pool?"


	5. Chapter 5

_For the McGee in all of us, I give you chapter five. Enjoy at your own risk and don't forget to tip your author..._

* * *

**Symbiosis**

**5**

_Curiosity couldn't kill the cat on its first eight tries, but agents don't often resurrect after the first death._

Though it may be a sympathy dinner, there's evidence to support the theory that McGee is sitting across from Abby at a swanky hotel lounge because the lighting, oversized bulbs on chains that hang down in the faces of starved patrons, is ideal for viewing every nuisance of a comprehensive boasting. Every annoyed pore on his face can be counted, tagged and stowed as she recounts how she benefited from his misstep.

At least he gets fed.

Later, McGee will say they had a quiet evening meal, two friends who'd once been more sharing overpriced entrees portioned out to satisfy the hunger of the common water beetle. But now, with a stomach protesting with multi-syllabic language how a cheeseburger wouldn't kill anyone, Tim picks at what might be grilled asparagus or possibly blades of thick and dirty grass from out back and wonders how he'd ever navigated a relationship with someone like Abby. When she's not mentioning the fungus on today's corpse, she's driving a monster truck over his ego with such subtle hints as;

"I thought Tony was gonna stuff your dismembered body into a trash compactor when he heard your pool selection."

"In my defense," McGee grouses between chewing a scalded cheese fritter, "history will attest to my choice with colorized pie charts."

"And you thought he'd be cool with you putting money on that noticeably outdated fact?"

"Aren't pools supposed to be anonymous?"

Abby grins, a wide gleam hampered by the somewhat diverse coating on her Mardi Gras chicken. Frowning into his glass's reflection, McGee takes a cautious sip of what is creatively named Sin Inferno, a reddish liquid that tastes of paprika and mold. She'd recommended it, clearly in spite and triumph.

He'd need a dental appointment after this meal, which promised new-age, world-class cuisine that, had Abby not won the infamous pool, would have required a small loan and the rights to his firstborn to afford. Tony and Ziva are attending an Israeli art retrospective featuring Eli Eltaraz, complete with grand and glorious wine bar. Although, if recent weeks are an indication, Tony has forsaken the splendors of drinking in favor of quality time best undertaken sober.

Clothing optional.

DiNozzo's overall demeanor suggests that the man no longer needs the numbing qualities of alcohol, something McGee cannot share at present. The team has gone out a few times since the community unveiling of their relationship, which involved a skirmish of snide followed by a stunning, in-depth make-up kiss on the public side of the restroom door. DiNozzo doesn't appear to miss the strong stuff when Ziva's hand slides under the table.

Tim, however, considers hitting bottle to wash away the taste of fritter and failure.

**…….**

The best thing about a long drive is the captive audience scenario. Politeness dictates that questions posed in the confined space of a fast moving car require answering on the sole basis that conversation is a better alternative to counting billboards and potholes. McGee's family used car trips to play "Only the Truth Shall be Spoken' game, in which any question must be answered as though a polygraph was attached. His parents believed it promoted honesty and tact, two vital skills for life and the job market.

The worst thing about a long drive is when the audience can beat the inquirer with whatever's in the glove box. Which is generally best to recall before opening one's mouth. But it's a long way to the witness's home and the vibration of misaligned tires has McGee's teeth rattling.

"So," Tim begins with fairly unnecessary gesturing. "You two had the 'couple stuff discussion' yet?"

The question earns a look that veers toward bouncing ridicule. "Been watching chick flicks alone again?"

As a cover for his strangling curiosity, Tim tries on the expression of mild detachment that Gibbs affects during casual interrogations. The odd slide of his upper lip, half-sneer, half-paralysis, says it's not working. McGee settles for the more familiar run-on list.

"You know… kids, cats, build or buy, number of bathrooms, cars and remotes."

Tony's sigh details in triplicate how he's indulging a nosy teen to the limit of godlike patience.

"We've had the conversation about not having the conversation. Does that count?"

Based on their established version of normal, any exchange that doesn't conclude with pointing guns or self-deportation should count for something. Anything.

McGee signals his lane change. "I'm just saying, these things should be sorted out before… you know."

"If you're gonna launch into Dear McAbby mode," Tony groans, "could you wait until the car stops?"

Stroking his smooth chin, McGee weighs whether growing a beard would convince people that he's lived an actual life.

"I've done my share of dating you know."

"Really?" Turning in his seat, DiNozzo scrapes a harsh gaze over the younger man. "You've dated a ninja who can throw a post-it note so hard, it can decapitate someone like a sheet metal frisbee?"

"That's not what I…"

"You, who still hold the wheel at ten and two, understand the complexities of waking up next to someone who's just waiting for the wrong tone of 'good morning' to separate your brain from your head through your ear."

After moving his hands into a more casual driving position, Tim conjures the image. "Not sure that's even possible."

"Give her time," Tony muses as the farmlands of Dullville roll out beyond the window. "She'll invent the way, perfect it and trademark it. Meanwhile I'm bleeding from the jugular and I'm sure no insurance pays out to my grieving widow under a death-by mammoth-papercut clause."

It occurs to McGee that if DiNozzo ever put his rapid-fire bantering through a fiction press, he'd be a bestseller. And then his head gets in line up with his ears.

"Wait," Tim says. "Does Ziva know she's moved from fake fiancé to grieving yet murderous widow?"

The vast, sprawling nothing passing by the car keeps Tony's normally hyperactive attention. It's forty seconds and three colon exams before he whispers something meant for no one's ears.

"Not fake."

Despite the assurance of tire manufacturers that rubber will grip the road within seconds of brake application to halt forward progress, the car slides for ages before stopping roughly near the shoulder. Or, if graded by a driving instructor, not remotely close.

"What was that?"

In no hurry to face the squeaking man, Tony lets the scenery catch up to the stopped vehicle before tearing eyes away from the shameful parking job.

"That behemoth ring was fake because, quite honestly, you shouldn't have bet against me." Tony's hand twitches as he reigns in the instinctive head slap. "Her real ring is much more tasteful."

McGee uses up all nine lives in the resulting choke.


	6. Chapter 6

_It's surprising how many of you have dared to enjoy this story. I'm extremely thankful for your continued interest and humbly present the next installment. _

_Onward we trod in the shoes of one Timothy McGee..._

* * *

**Symbiosis**

**6**

_What sort of demonic bargain must one make to spin a truth into a lie?_

In the strained hours between crickets and the alarm, McGee concludes that he hasn't made enough pacts with the devil. Or any. Because he's missing a few essential skills that clearly spring from a contract written in blood and hellfire. He should, in fact, be sleeping. Rather than sweat-coated dreams of bugs, fire and public nakedness, the recent topics to fill his unconscious mind, he's considering looking up the toll-free number for The Father of All Lies. Surely Satan has a hotline. It's obvious that the tag team of DiNozzo and David have a direct connection to the Dark One because they have access to a fountain of useful deceptions.

Such as the newly coined truth-lie.

It takes a special kind of satanic mastery to hold a truth in hand, give it a rough shake and create the appearance of a colossal fib. The opposite process is fairly routine; boiling a lie in just enough fact to make it taste like truth. Any crook can do this. He himself can do this. But to reverse the tactic suggests the selling of souls.

The events of recent days have taken an unfortunate toll on the general direction of Thom Gemcity's creative mood. Inhabitants of the fictitious world he's crafted are becoming a bit like screeching teens, chewing up everything from family to lampposts in a chest-beating thesis on the unfairness of life. The current chapter has taken an unmarked off-ramp from the apple pie tone of the preceding sections, fraught with lies on a comprehensive level which encases not only the main pair, but every secondary, tertiary and unnamed character in the book. In the course of a few hours, McGee has devised depraved conspiracies and cutting subplots for the sole purpose of introducing the truth-lie and then railing against it with all the force of three thousand brutally pointed words avenging his pride.

Venting through character assassination.

Only this afternoon, McGee had been convinced that his two team members had enjoyed a fine laugh at his expense and as far as perennial probie torment goes, he finds the pretense preferable. But with Tony's slip in the car, the words _'not fake' _have been perched tauntingly above Tim's head like a Macy's balloon losing air and heading for a cranial crash. He tried to duck the impending blow by simply not asking for details. He's been lied to before, so why pursue a discourse on the cut and clarity of what Tony called the 'real ring.' They'd reached their destination minutes after Tim had sucked enough air back into his lungs to sustain faltering life and there'd been no time to rescind the don't ask, don't tell policy he trusts to keep him out of trouble.

And so he types.

One of the perks of novel writing is inventing storylines to mirror or course-correct one's own life. McGee's been exacting revenge for the better part of three hours in the safety of his home. And at the conclusion of chapter twenty-three, Tommy is shot by a fifth grader wielding a BB gun. Justice. But fingers freeze over waiting keys as McGee sits in uncomfortable repose, letting the artistic flow sail him through Lisa's reaction to the purposefully comedic incident.

Lisa's vengeance marries Ziva's precision with Tarantino's gore.

In Tim's sleepy mind, she's pummeling the kid, then crouches beside her partner, tending to Tommy with all the tenderness of a roused badger. The young boy tries to stand and a post-it note is summoned from a hidden dispenser in her pocket. When the child's head is severed from his skinny body, she picks up it up by the bowl-cut hair and pulls the brain out through the ear. In defense of her love and without sullying her tasteful ring.

Tim screams awake and wipes the drool from the Remington's keys.

**…….**

It would have gone unnoticed except, being a trained investigator, McGee can let no little changes slide. There's a purpose to every alteration, an agenda for each deviance from conventional norms. Of course, staring at Ziva's neck means looking dangerously close to other… assets and his life depends on not being caught. If Tony doesn't kill him for the trajectory of his eyes, Ziva surely will.

There's no necklace.

Actually, there is a familiar chain present and accounted for, but the Star of David that's traditionally visible enough to become expected has been sequestered beneath her clothes like a federal witness forced into hiding. That it no longer slides out from beneath her collar suggests it's been duct taped to her skin. Until this morning when the small agent chases a witness eight blocks and lands in a cartoon splat atop the fleeing teenager. In the resulting flail of limbs, the spry youth rips the necklace from Ziva's neck, sending silver flying at the newly arrived back up. McGee extends a hand to the former Mossad officer, who retains a determined hold on seventy pounds of thrashing girl. As Tim cuffs the lithe Cindy Broden, Ziva bends to retrieve the lost items; chain, star and what appears to be an antique ring. One might even call it tasteful.

One might also call it evidence.

On the ride back the captured juvenile spits noxious curses at her chauffeurs as Tim dredges a pint of manly courage from his acid-boiling stomach to inquire.

"So, is that a family heirloom?"

Not one for tells, Ziva's fingers do not rise to touch the reattached objects at her neck. She also does not redden, stammer or otherwise crack because she is the biggest ice cube in the tray. She does, however, toss patented annoyance at the driver with a slicing glance.

"It is."

Enough recovered robbery gems have passed beneath his envious eyes to know the antique finish surrounding a brilliant stone speak of wealth and age. Speaks louder of meaning and fairly shouts of tasteful.

"Looks valuable." His eyes are darting to her hands, concerned about the army of sticky notes that could be concealed up her sleeves.

Her sharp stare is exactly like that sheet metal Frisbee Tony warned him about. Ohm she's suspicious now and a moving car is a damn good trap for a stupid man.

"Why the interest? I do not take you for a jewelry biff."

"Buff," Tim corrects before considering the wisdom of it. "And no. I just hadn't noticed it until it went flying and figured it might have some personal meaning. You know, people say I have the kind of face that folks like to talk to. Not that I'm prying or anything. I mean it's your business."

Ziva's menacing laugh shrivels his manhood to a peanut. "This is why Gibbs will not let you interrogate."

The thirteen year old sprinter snickers, earning his glare which in turn gives her amusement traction.

"You ramble, dude. Big gun but nervous of a girl, huh?"

"I'm only asking out of polite curiosity, the way adults do. You just," McGee summons the power of concise speech and finds the switch is stuck on ramble. "You wouldn't accept something gaudy and now here's this elegant ring you obviously don't think is safe on your finger. Just made me wonder…"

"If Tony is more capable of proposing than being faithful?" Ziva sniffs back seismic annoyance. "Your money is worth a hundred thoughts."

"Worth a thousand words and that was supposed to be anonymous." He knows his voice is louder than the confined space requires but this torment is chafing all the sensitive bits. "For a happy couple, you're both awfully defensive."

The mound of warm flesh turns to rigid stone like a CGI masterpiece and Cindy's head is shaking so hard, Tim can hear her brain rattle. Tactical error realized, the backpedaling begins.

"Didn't mean it like that. Sorry."

Two miles and three mini-strokes later, Ziva shifts in her seat, facing him as directly as bucket seats permit. Pink glides along the crisp olive complexion, as close to a tell as the trained assassin gets.

"I am distrustful of people claiming they are not prying while simultaneously prying hard enough to break fingers."

"In other words," Cindy chips in, "get over it, flatfoot. She ain't tellin'."

Extended red lights are clemency from a suddenly loving God, allowing McGee to pull up behind a Hummer and contemplate smashing into its enormous bumper. But with his luck, they'd all survive and the females would use the deployed airbag material to suffocate him.

"I wasn't a cop, never walked a beat and," Tim points a stern finger, "no one says flatfoot anymore."

"Sorry, five-oh." Cindy's tongue ring is obscene and he'll be obsessing about black-on-pink for hours after.

Apparently, Ziva's had sufficient time to stew because her features lose the serrated edge. Fingers pull at her collar, uncovering the two ornaments dangling from the damaged chain. Just beholding the sparkling ring evaporates her remaining irritation. She must have glowed like the New Years Eve ball when DiNozzo had presented it.

"It was his grandmother's." Her voice is kind, a rare thing. "She married an unpredictable man that her family distrusted and she was told he would be gone in a year. So they abandoned Italy, came to America and died holding hands sixty years later." It's her hopeful sigh that compresses McGee's heart. "We should be so lucky."

"You will be," Tim declares, as abruptly certain as the sky is blue.

"We were not forthcoming and it offended you. Weakness or not, we are sorry."

He's grinning now, a silly, uncontrollable grin that nearly hurts his cheeks and drags eye-rolls from the young occupant behind him. The light turns green, yellow and red again and still they sit.

"Did I ever tell you about the winsome virtues of the truth-lie?"


	7. Chapter 7

_Soldering on with McGee's version of daily Tiva life. Best enjoyed with brightly colored Peeps at your side..._

* * *

**Symbiosis**

**7**

_The silent volley escalates to the perilous level of spectator whiplash._

It starts, as nine out of ten disasters prefer, with the inconvenience of work. The trouble with taking cases outside one's residential proximity is the harrowing prospect of The Motel. NCIS, conscious of economic tides and eager to slash budgets at the slightest bulge, has downgraded the nature of the facilities housing field agents on the road. Their fugitive, an imaginative fellow possessing a fifth grade education and a stolen train ticket, disappeared into the backwoods of the Carolinas, a decision for which four disgruntled federal employees are currently damning him and the Amtrak he rode in on.

Television adds ten pounds and a wealth of bogus glamour to the job.

The Motel, identified as the Anchorage Arms by the sign last painted in the Roosevelt administration, features an unrelenting nautical theme and is, in geographic fact, nowhere near Alaska. Which doesn't deter the dining room waiter from speaking at length about the Alaskan king crab, the Juno java and the Anchor, some sort of dried meat alleged to be a seal derivative. The only aspect of the place that pays proper homage to the far northwest is the temperature of the rooms, controlled by management and spiraling into the depths of the tundra. It is here that three arduous days of tracking a less than brilliant man, a surprisingly difficult task for the government's finest, begins to show. Tony and Ziva disappear just after the second course, which smells like an argument and tastes like a punch in the teeth.

Let it be noted that Leroy Jethro Gibbs is not one to find confinement pleasurable. He's barking for results while utilizing a blue-tooth device recently purchased and shortly to be flung into the nearest lake. It's not as scary as it used to be and McGee thinks perhaps this is a sign of agent maturity. A full belly, thanks to the free rolls which served as the sole edible item on the gravy-stained menu, sees Timothy McGee to his bed. A scratchy affair, the comforter's color suggests that Santa vomited here recently. But McGee's got a thick book and an interesting text message from the Barnes and Noble cashier to keep him warm, if itchy, in the long night ahead.

April has no immediately recognizable superpowers.

In that secret place his inner child bounces within, McGee longs to be one half of a power couple, the kind that come in a matched set and vanquish tedium by merely arriving. But lacking movie star looks or action star skills, it'll be up to his leading lady to bring the superpowers. The current prospect, as many before her, has impressive stock in regular. She's a hard worker in a chain retailer, wearing pretty blouses, a dainty bracelet and the plastic smile of one who's expected to be delighted to wait upon the masses that choose the bargain rack over the classics. The day they met, Tim found his first novel laying discarded in the budget section, a bright sticker vandalizing the front to declare it a steal at five dollars. And his royalties had dripped from his ears as he'd carted the newest competitors to the register.

Snuggled into an irritating fabric, Tim watches Gibbs grunt and frown over the report Abby had faxed to the front desk. He'd rather be wrapped up with April before a warm fire, but she wants to take things slow. No kisses on skin not covering the rounded cheek, no holding hands if swinging of the joined appendages will be occurring. Swinging of any sort has also been banned for the two partners currently pretending not to be sharing a room down the hall. Official NCIS guidelines require male agents to bunk together, apart, separate and emphatically divided from female coworkers. And as far as the paperwork is concerned, this has been carried out to the redundant letter.

Receipts will hide the lie.

They are, of course, crammed in one space undertaking activities not specified in the field manual. Naturally no one acknowledges this. McGee had tried to ignore the glances in the car this morning, the hands under the dining table this evening and the wordless gestures that timed their exit from the meal. Even now, book growing heavy in his grasp, Tim can recall his efforts not to notice the entire conversation held by eyebrows. Said efforts gained him no mercy from the boss, who'd been watching the two the last few days, searching for evidence that the union won't work in the field. And they're trying so hard not to give cause for concern. But the days have been so achingly long and they've been so uncharacteristically good that even Pa Gibbs can't dredge up sufficient gruff to remind them of protocol tonight.

But the morning is an exploding pop tart.

It begins sweetly enough, the man holding a heavy, misaligned door for the lady. Breakfast buffets wait for no glowing couple and despite the questionable items on the tables, they are a fluid dance of choose, scoop and pile. His hand is at her elbow as he leans past for an unhealthy amount of bacon. She's grinning as she selects the blander and undoubted safer foods, taunting him with a hip bump to his thigh as strawberries are placed with suggestive flair on her plate. She's silently saying _if we were alone, I might let you feed me_ and he's wordlessly replying_ I'm five seconds from not caring about the audience._

Until a gun goes off a barrel at a time and the sparse patronage ducks under flimsy folding tables as though there's gold in the tiles. Filling the doorway with a body that could block the ozone hole, their fugitive scans the room for those hunting him, recognizes Ziva and aims. Tony, having forsaken his bacon, raises his own gun while his free hand finds his partner's back and shoves her down. Hard. Her face meets an unwashed floor and while Gibbs yells to the drunken redneck to rethink his decision, Tony steps over Ziva to stand before the man.

Of course, shielding a woman only works when she stays put.

The murder in the small Israeli's eyes appears to have dual targets. Deep brown orbs nearly cross in their indecision; who should she laser to death with her glare? McGee's never been so happy to be stuck guarding jello bowls and the staff currently wearing the stuff. Ziva's aiming her weapon at Cedric Worth while fixing sudden and considerable anger at Tony. Worth has likely never been intimidated by a girl but Tim's pretty sure the man wasn't sweating when he stumbled in. The pancakes are getting cold and McGee is tired on kneeling on sticky tiles. So it is with grateful knees that he watches Gibbs circle around the back, grasp the abnormally long spatula left on a griddle and touch it to the back of Worth's neck, causing the shot gun and the man holding it to drop like a kitten on fire.

There's another non-verbal conversation occurring. Only this time, the unsmiling woman opens her own door while the man hauls a crook to his feet. But Tony's eyes follow his partner as she puts a town of distance between them. And Gibbs' infinitesimal sympathy comes in a warning.

"Some princesses don't like to be rescued."


	8. Chapter 8

**Symbiosis**

**8**

_It does not have to be verbally spoken when it is mentally shouted like a stabbed banshee._

The venue is woefully underlit for a bout, lacking stadium seating and food vendors, but this hinders not the prize fight. And following the tradition of every Pay-Per-View event that men have misspent their laundry money to observe, it's lopsided and likely brief. There is a significant shock and awe approach being employed by the expected champion and Timothy McGee, investigator supreme, is in her corner. Albeit hidden by the empty hall and a well-placed plastic plant.

Agent McGee has, in fact, nothing better to do than dodge responsibility and indulge in spectator eavesdropping. April hasn't returned his calls all day, not since he suggested they go away for a weekend and she cited some puritanical principle to which she holds herself. The chastity belt must require a retinal scan from the Pope to open. But he still has a better chance thawing the icicle than Tony does of making it out of this room. The senior agent's light gray suit is exquisite, more than good enough to be buried in.

Sometimes a murder in progress shouldn't be stopped.

"Have I given the impression of incapability?" Ziva's clipped voice ricochets around the thick walls of a room just big enough to hide her partner's body. "Do you mistake me for a dumbbell in distress?"

"Damsel and no," Tony corrects and answers succinctly.

Her fingers are poised for strangulation but her partner is strangely calm. Tony's either daydreaming or working on a Jedi apprenticeship. Trying to retain the attention of her audience, Ziva resorts to the traditional raising-of-voice-to-PMS-decibel.

"I have more training than the population of this building combined. I can take care of myself, Tony."

"I'm aware of that…"

"And I do not appreciate being shoved out of danger like… like…" she's snapping her fingers, seeking something the scolded man refuses to supply. "Like a helpless, feeble female."

"You're not…"

"I know I'm not!" She's pacing now, a fearful thing. "But you opt for barbarics as though I do not have a gun as loaded as yours."

As her legs carry her tense upper body across the room, Tony remains perched on an empty desk. That he's making no solid attempt to defend his actions sets McGee's slim portion of male pride on edge.

"And furthermore," a finger is stabbing air, "this would not occur if we had maintained a professional detachment. We said nothing would change."

Biting his lip to the point of damage, DiNozzo is clamping down on his runaway mouth with a shocking level of success. Despite the lack of activity since they got back, the man looks exhausted. Shoulders bowed, the impetuous Italian averts his eyes from the steaming pile of feminine fury, submissive in a way McGee is prepared to label unmasculine. Tony is, quite simply, whipped. Whipped to a fluffy state of Amish cream. Except cream would have more backbone than this beaten man is displaying. Is this what impending marriage does to frat boys?

"I will have your answer." Hands have found hips in a stance universally recognized as the end of a man's life. "Do you find me powerless to fend for myself?"

"Of course not." The reply is bitten off and there are a million sentences stacked up in gridlock behind that one.

"And yet you see no harm in making a physical statement to that effect?"

"That wasn't my intention."

Her huff can be heard from space. "Then why was I kissing linoleum?"

And like a twig trampled beneath a sasquatch, Tony snaps with a vengeance, rising from his time-out seat to tower over the tiny bonfire.

"Because I'm tired of burying people. He had a bead on you and I kinda like your face when it's not blown off. And if you think that us dating means I've lost my right to keep my partner safe, you're insane."

And with that, McGee removes 'whipped' from the list of adjectives. Apparently, anger is a wildfire contagion fleeing her to infect him. Tony steps closer, signaling an unfavorable shift in the fight she wanted. The Jedi robe has been thrown down, incinerated and scattered to the winds.

"I would have done it for Gibbs or McGee or a person I don't actually like. I would've done it for you the day we met so don't ask me to be less motivated now."

"I did not mean…"

"And don't tell me it doesn't go both ways. Let's not forget your little maneuver during the war games."

Even standing still, she's hemorrhaging ground. "Tony, I realize that we ha-…"

"Realize this, Ziva. I love you. Deal with it."

It's presented with such matter-of-fact normalcy that it almost doesn't suck the oxygen from the room. Almost. Until it does and her staggering silence says this is a new argument ender. McGee is apparently false in his assumption that engaged people would already be past first admissions of those three words. Gathering her faculties, Ziva breathes into the vacuum and performs something close to a smile. Tony's towering a bit less now, seemingly wound down from the confession and McGee, despite the tickling of dust from his chosen shield of shrubbery, cannot slip away before hearing her reply.

"You know just when to say it, don't you?" Awe has softened her tone, if not her face.

DiNozzo shrugs with compulsory indifference. "Had to beat you at something."

"I was unaware that it was a contest."

She's trying to strangle her pleasure but the anger has already lost its foothold. Like the flip of a cosmic switch, she's gone from zero to content in thirty seconds and while the fuse is always simmering, McGee suspects there will be no more explosions today. But in the flex of the jaw, Tim knows Tony's not done.

In that moment, the witness watches the specter of Rocky Balboa rising. Tony portrays the underdog who stays in the brutal fight, taking all the hits and wearing the opponent down until he can unleash his own attack. And with victory, the tense countenance leaves him in a smooth drain but the intensity remains with enough force to scratch the plate glass windows.

"I don't expect you to say it," he tells her. "Or even feel it, though the ring gives me some hope. But you should know that you're it for me so I'd rather have you furious than dead."

The pace of Ziva's breathing foreshadows a stroke and Tony, ever brave and mildly stupid, dares to take her hand. That she doesn't smack him speaks to the progress of this conversation. She's calming now and McGee's romantic side fancies that a sugar-dipped declaration of eternity is coming.

"Perhaps I am not prepared for others to feel a need to protect me." The shrug is her apology for struggling to release something personal. "It is more than my father would do."

"I understand that, Zi. But I won't have our relationship thrown at me as a reason to do less than my job. And if you can't handle this, you'll have to be the one to walk away. Because I can't."

And she's glowing like a solar flare.

"Accepted."

Her concession is delivered with hands slipping inside his suit jacket, possessive and promising. A dangerous mix is brewing in the cramped room, given that the door is open and their observer is one dust-induced sneeze away from being discovered.

"But the next time you push me to the floor," Ziva chides him, "we had better be naked."

A demanding tilt of her head and the resulting kiss is the antithesis of Disney pure.

McGee's mouth floods with damp disappointment that she has failed to return the admission. But his brain pulses with the electrostatic charge that encases their opposing magnetic poles and factoring in the wealth of non-verbal cues they dine on, he understands Ziva doesn't need to painstakingly enunciate an overused, undervalued Hallmark sentiment.

She fairly screams it.

But if this is what super couples have to endure to manage a single day, Timothy McGee and his midwinter April shall not be joining the ranks.

* * *

_**Marching ever onward. The next installment nearly complete but don't let that stop you from sending comments on this one!**_


	9. Chapter 9

**_The response this little story has gotten continues to stagger me. Many many hearty thanks to you, who have slugged through eight previous installments to get to this moment. May you find it worthwhile..._**

* * *

**Symbiosis**

**9**

_The sap is thick enough to overcome dead babies._

"What does it mean?" Ziva asks somewhere between the second car fire and the final toll booth. When the confused silence of her male companions meets her question, she clarifies. "What Danvers said about his nephew; 'the apple does not fall off the tree?'"

"Doesn't fall far from the tree," her partner corrects. Tony has reclined the passenger seat as far back as the sedan's manufacturer has allowed, eyes closed against the midday brightness.

McGee, authorized to drive because the other two are exhausted, looks in the rearview mirror to find Ziva observing all the scenery that a freeway can provide with a bored eye.

"What does it mean," she repeats, turning away from concrete dividers and graffiti.

"It's meant to describe children who carry the tendencies of their parents," McGee explains while merging away from the fast lane. Drivers in Maryland are, on the whole, polite folks but the outer lane has been commandeered by psychos today.

Tony shifts in his seat, legs too long to find comfort in the compact rental vehicle. "It's rarely a compliment," he says.

"You have had the phrase applied to you?" Ziva's warming to the subject. "Your father is quite the charmer, so one might say you have not veered far from the example he set."

"For a great many reasons, I hope that's not true."

The tone has shifted the amiable atmosphere toward the sort of tension that ends conversations with anyone else but Ziva. She's been bred to ignore hints, no matter how pointy the spear they're attached to.

"I have no complaints with your father. A bit shady perhaps but not…"

"Shady?" Tony snorts. "S'like saying this case was bad."

There are some discussions that do not invite third party opinions and McGee, missing only the hat, will gladly play the role of the mute chauffeur. The case has, indeed, stretched the very shirt fabric of the word bad until it was the size of a circus tent. There is no possible reason for the criminal element to produce victims under the age of four.

As the sprawling industry of an old city passes them on all sides, the occupants in the car fall collectively quiet. McGee's literary mind fills in clichés about smokestacks belching and tires rumbles. But the craftier piece of his brain mulls over the image of cannibal silence eating the participants with a brutal and indiscriminant hush. It has not gone unnoticed that DiNozzo managed in a few careful words to change the subject and effectively halt Ziva's comments about the apples of his family tree. That he chose to remind them of a dead toddler rather than talk about his father is telling.

Forty minutes from the office and to say the snores coming from Ziva are indelicate is being unduly kind. Wincing each time the octave dips into the range of drunken cavemen, McGee keeps looking into the rearview as though an annoyed stare can wake the noisy dead. The still-lounging Tony seems entirely untroubled by the nails-on-chalkboard irritant and the question simply must be asked.

"How can you sleep with that?"

Opening his eyes to cast a quick glance backward to his fiancée, Tony's smile is more adoring than the level of audible pain warrants.

"You get used to it." His shrug is unaffected but when she evicts a vicious snort from her nose, he amends, "sort of."

Against logic, the snores actually increase from their impolite decibel to something on par with the demolition of a building and McGee is considering the damage to his career if he drives the vehicle into the next abutment.

"Seriously, how do you stop yourself from mauling her?"

"She may sound like the apocalypse but at least she's here."

The commitment-phobic man speaks with all the sincerity of a lifelong romantic and while the drivel is the sort of ear-bleeding nonsense that single people despise, the practically unattached McGee cannot fault DiNozzo for indulging in it. After what the couple has come through, no one can cite them as undeserved. And though Tony hasn't slept for the whole of the drive, somehow the freight train in the backseat slowly soothes him into sleep. A ten minute delay and they reach the parking lot without incident. As Ziva comes alert and notes their location, McGee opens his door and swings numb legs toward the asphalt. Leaning between the bucket seats, Ziva gives Tony's shoulder a gentle shake and whispers what sounds suspiciously like _wake up baby_. He inhales deeply, blinking awake with a shiver.

It's not from the cold.

Days ago, Tony had infiltrated an extreme betting ring to drive out the crew responsible for Tabitha Oravo's mutilation. The fifty six hour party the group engaged in had been hard on both Tony and his partner, who stayed on the comm. With his for the duration. McGee and Gibbs took turns on an uncooperative futon. Having found the discarded body of a second toddler, later identified as a long-missing boy, Tony closed the trap on the ringleader and lieutenants, who placed bets on how many kicks it takes to get to the death of a baby. A condensed briefing was conducted on sight and the team was sent back to the office to complete the staggering pile of paperwork.

No one had such inclinations.

The bull pen is hushed as the hour approaches dinnertime. Files sit open but unread, pens hover mid-word, fingers held mid-type. The image of two abused and decapitated children, with names and families they'd have to forget when the next case arrives, lingers now, thickening the air as two agents at separate desks draw together without moving and the third looks on. Jealousy is the wrong word but the writer can't settle on the right one.

McGee hasn't spoken to April about his work and the horrors that punctuate the pranks and good-natured ribbing. She scans books and accepts payments and smiles to each stranger without considering the depravity they may have inflicted on humanity. She sees no one as evil, only misguided. That he's in law enforcement hasn't piqued her interest enough to seek details. She'd rather hear about the publishing process. McGee wants to talk about something real with a listener who can comprehend the mortality they swallow down with every phone call.

Tony and Ziva speak more with sighs than most people can with words.

His soft exhalation says he's tires and troubled. Hers signals a promise to take it all away later. Maybe they'll finally venture into that conversation about children, the one Tony had said they have by not having. Perhaps they'll decide this world of bodies stuffed in chimneys or killed by robot trucks or embalmed while alive is no place to raise an experiment of their shared genes. Likely the dangers of their jobs will seal the door on parenting. But evidence leads Tim to believe these two will be alright regardless.

They may exist in the apocalypse but at least they're still here.


	10. Chapter 10

_**Every time I think I'm about finished with this saga, something new strikes me that demands to be presented. I hope you find it worthwhile because there may very well be more forthcoming...**_

* * *

**Symbiosis**

**10**

_The emotional baggage is the heaviest thing they own._

Guys help guys move. Girls help girls decorate. The gender line is very specific on this and rarely the two shall cross. Give McGee a cardboard box and he's ready. Press a paint roller into his hand and he's willing. Ask where a hammock should hang for an optimal breeze and he's able. But seek an opinion on curtains, spreads and related finery and Tim is a fish stuck miles from the pond on a rush hour freeway with a driverless truck barreling his way. Shocked, gasping and destined for a messy death.

"Well?" Mossad's finest prompts, nearly forgetting not to place paint-splattered hands on her hips. "What do you think would work?"

Swallowing hard against a parched throat, McGee turns to the window in question and portrays a man giving purposeful thought to his answer. Inwardly he's berating himself for not having invented a computer program for such an occasion. It's a window and thus unworthy of the consideration she's demanding that he apply to it. But her look informs that she'll cover it with his hide should he fail to present the solution.

That Tony finds Angry Ziva Mode a substantial turn on is inhuman.

"Let's see," Tim stalls, walking toward the window while strategically cupping his chin. There are a few nods, a well-timed hmmm and the dissertation begins in earnest. "No one can deny that it's an octagon, which is a nice shape for the space. Though I imagine most curtain manufacturers aren't rushing to make eight-sided coverings. I suppose you could make one." Emphasis on _you_.

"With the sewing machine I neither own nor can operate?"

Significant chin stroking, as seen on interior design shows, nets no inspiration. Television make such odd decisions look so easy, which prompts McGee's frazzled brain to take the leap toward contemplation of a network adaptation of his first book when he should be focused on the problem at hand.

"Could go the mini-blind route."

"Which is too tacky for our home." Funny how effortlessly the 'our' glides off the solitary creature's tongue. Tony's ego can be heard climbing several notches in the other room.

"What about that plastic stained glass adherent?" He cringes even as he speaks the ridiculousness. "It not only gives privacy but adds a lovely dimension of color."

Ziva's got specks of mocha paint in her hair and a paint stirrer in her hand, jabbing it dangerously.

"You are not taking this seriously, McGee."

When there's nothing left to say, admit defeat and run. "You're screwed."

"That is my point. One you'll recall that I voiced an hour ago."

An hour ago he was choking on paint fumes. The trim work had given him trouble and he'd nearly put his foot into the tray when dismounting from a shaking ladder. DiNozzo, using his height and a prior nomadic existence to unfair advantage, had finished an entire room before McGee had mastered a single wall. Which hadn't been mentioned under an apparent restriction of snark imposed by Ziva. Helpers should be treated cordially. Except when they can't solve octagonal issues.

Meanwhile, Abby romps about the large spaces in a white painter's cover-all, giving the cohabitating couple a hundred frightening ideas for how to transform their first joint dwelling into a righteous den of iniquity. Tony championed some of the more creative notions but Ziva has a design scheme in mind and refuses to deviate from it. If only McGee knew what it was, he might be better prepared for the current debate. By early estimation, she's going for some sort of desert-Americana hybrid.

"Just leave it alone," Tony says from the adjoining room. "No reason to cover it."

Her huff possesses sufficient force to dry the paint in one go. "Heading for the doorway and taking in her beau skillfully stroking a rich coffee hue onto the hallway floor molding, Ziva drops her tone to one of secrecy, a silly concept with an interested audience hovering nearby.

"A ground floor window facing the road without shielding of some kind does not bother you?"

"Not to the point of lunacy," he defends, eyes carefully affixed to the work before him.

Abby looks as uncomfortably curious as McGee feels, mimicking his position behind a door. In earshot but out of firing range.

"You are not concerned that anyone could take a shot from their vehicles and kill us all?"

"An eight-sided curtain's not gonna save us, Zi." Tony gives up focusing on his task and points to the closest living room window. "You pulled the drapes back on that one, so thanks for making us all targets of the crazy sidewalk sniper."

Belittlement of her fear colors her cheeks a sickly shade. "You know what I mean."

"No, I really don't. But if you want to bulletproof every window, go for it."

At home or in the office, nothing changes. There isn't enough therapy or drugs in the known world to keep these two calm for more than an hour. They may be symbiotic, but that easy mix is no less dangerous.

Ziva's taken to studying the quality hardwood while Tony's gaze never wavers from her face. He's become too accustomed to these rifts to hide.

"You think I am obsessing over a minor detail?" Panic to resignation in twenty seconds and Tony wisely lets a sigh supply his answer. "You wish me to be less… militant."

"I wish you to be less… fearful."

It's carefully worded and as he approaches her, Tony's hand reaches for the necklace that has struggled out from under her shirt. He handles the jewelry with such respect that Tim knows little of the tenderness derives from its antiquity. The ring has meaning to the man, but not as much as the woman wearing it. McGee glances at the suddenly moist-eyed Abby, who's chewing on a ponytail and making no move to abandon her post.

Tony lowers his forehead to meet Ziva's and her fingers curl around his belt loops, tugging him closer. It's possible the audience will soon have to avert their eyes.

Tony's grin is a glowing thing. "You haven't butchered a phrase all day."

"A shame, really. I enjoy your corrections."

"'Course you do. It's how you know I'm paying attention." He tilts his head a bit to press his lips to her brow. "Tell me about the window?"

"It's too nice a room to be shot up. It will be a space for precious things."

Ziva's lithe fingers wander along Tony's forearm and grip his wrist, bringing his hand to rest on her stomach.

Someone's fanning McGee and when he blinks, Tim feels hardwood digging into his spine.


	11. Chapter 11

**Symbiosis**

**11**

_Playing spin the bottle with karma earns few kisses._

If there exists ten levels of frigid, the car has sunk into the uncharted twelfth dimension. Not only can exhalations be seen, but the breath leaving McGee's mouth crystallizes and fairly drops into his lap. Which is so numb as to ensure a drastic reduction in his procreative abilities. Untested though they are. The low-mileage sedan has an impressively functional heating system, one that had to be abandoned in favor of silence as if the motor is more likely to give them away than their frozen corpses.

Not that he's complaining.

While he had stowed himself warmly aware in the lab for the last two days, a surveillance operation had been underway. Stake outs are only interesting when conducted in a posh hotel with unlimited Pay-Per-View. DiNozzo and Gibbs took the first night and the expectant parents endured twenty degree temperatures last night. Tim shuttered to think what methods were employed by the partners to keep themselves from becoming ice cubes.

Tonight, McGee had been pressed into service, a reminder that his long ago ambition to seek elevation to field work had been vanity unrewarded. This is Tony's third midnight séance with the stucco façade of a standard office building and when Tim convinces his eyes to open and venture sideways, he finds the impact that too little coffee and too much frostbite has wrought upon the senior agent.

Of course, the silence is nice.

At least for the first three hours. It's ten degrees outside and minus eight hundred inside the vehicle according to McGee's internal thermometer. Talking, an invitation for the chill to play house with his throat, might help maintain some sort of wakefulness since the concrete and steel is in no way engaging.

"So," he begins as icicles form on his upper molars. "A baby, huh?"

Last week's overheard revelation, the sole method by which Tim obtains information of late, left him with a bruise on the back of his head and three chapters worth of sweet dialogue in his notebook. But Agent Tommy's actual reaction remains a bit of a mystery. It's a non-topic at work, mostly because Gibbs doesn't know yet. Or does, if his previous psychic tendencies are any indicator.

"Yeah." The syllable is forced past a bucket of gravel in Tony's throat, the sound reminiscent of a four pack a day smoker.

"Know what it is yet?"

Blowing futilely into his cupped hands, Tony glances up at the building's roof, a place he's been keeping a persistent eye on for the last hour. As if he expects something there. McGee's thinking gargoyles.

"No, but I don't appreciate you calling my kid 'it,' McBrrr."

There's a freight train in the car and it originates from DiNozzo's lungs. Turning notes the pallor of a three night stint in the surveillance tundra and wonders if calling Gibbs for a reprieve would get him head slapped. Any port in a storm, his father would say and McGee is willing to save an ill man if it leads to his own warm bed. Five minutes later the coughing starts, which is accompanied by a glare that declares that if McGee mentions the soggy, rumbling sound to a soul, he'll only experience warmth again when he's standing next to the furnace in hell.

And so, true to form, McGee latches onto the ramble train. "Must be exciting, knowing a DiNozzo-David experiment is cooking in the oven. Well, I mean… buns actually _bake_ in the oven, not cook. And I'm certainly not implying that Ziva's only good as a baking apparatus. I don't think of her that way. Or, well, any way…" Like a rusted door, his mouth is stuck in the open position. "I just mean, you know, I'd be excited. And maybe scared. A bit. So it's okay if you're a little…"

"Petrified," Tony supplies, casting yet another glance at the rooftop and shaking his head, either at the lack of perps or McGee's prying. He's been operating with confidence all week and McGee is struck once more at the man's acting chops.

"You'll be a great dad," McGee assures, believing it despite the contrary evidence. He's seen DiNozzo with kids and there's a significant deficiency in his ability to relate to tater tots.

"I was raised by housekeepers and headmasters. What the hell do I know about being a father?"

The observation is both rhetorical and too personal for McGee to formulate an appropriate response. But, because he likes to think that time invested in forced company makes a friendship stronger, he tries.

"You'll be awesome. After all, you take good are of Ziva."

The coughing fit that disbelief produces shakes the car. When he catches his frozen breath, Tony shivers from the cold and some intangible thing McGee suspects is memory.

"Then explain Africa."

Okay, that one's easy. "Explain how you forfeited your career and went after a woman presumed dead on nothing more than faith and, dare I say, love? No problem." If they were girls, McGee might have taken Tony's hand. "We've all seen that when someone is yours, you'll make mountains kneel to do right by them. And the kid's yours. So mountains had better get used to genuflecting."

The defense pacifies the man, evidenced by his timid nod. Which is followed by a powerful sneeze.

"Time to abandon our post?"

"S'just a cold. I'm fine."

"No," McGee says. "You're sick and Ziva's protective streak, enhanced by pregnancy hormones, will see me maimed by ice cream coated pickles."

After a reflective minute, doubtlessly envisioning McGee's predicted death, Tony sighs, sending a cloud of frost toward the windshield.

"A girl, I think."

Fetus gender thus assigned, Tony looks once more to the roof. Leaning forward to scrutinize, his hand moves to the door handle and the hackles on McGee's neck tingle. Scanning the shingle line, no amount of squinting produces anything out of the ordinary.

"Gun barrel," Tony informs. "East wall."

Gibbs is radioed, back-up is ordered and Tony's fingers curl around the handle, waiting for movement. The barrel of the rifle sweeps the side parking lot, missing the sedan in the alley. Lacking the fortune of being behind the target, their position to the right makes exiting the vehicle tricky and McGee doesn't entirely trust DiNozzo's faltering control of his cold. A sniffle or sneeze will put a swift end to the long stakeout and Ziva doesn't need pregnancy hormone to fuel the rage. At least it won't be his fault. Staring hard to find the outline of the sniper and ponder the intended victim, McGee is momentarily oblivious to the fact that he's alone.

Tony turned on the stealth.

Following with enough inward curses to boil water, Tim slides into the role of back up, taking position behind the advancing DiNozzo. The climb to the roof via the rusted fire escape is quick and quiet. In the distance, the gentle roll of black vehicles can be detected, either the mark or the cavalry. The duo inch forward, their breath barely visible despite the numbing temperature. Neither is willing to breathe hard enough to be noticed prematurely.

The man in leather isn't expecting them. The rifle discharges when a cold muzzle is placed behind his ear, the jumpy trigger finger signaling his amateur status. The approaching posse turns out to be rival gang members, neatly falling into the tightening circle of NCIS agents. McGee has to force his fingers to bend around the man's arm in order to steer the would-be sniper into the waiting arms of grumpy feds, men and women who'd spent the night in warm homes and therefore have no reason to grouse. Tony gratefully sinks into the backseat of Gibbs' car, Ziva climbing in after him. Tim nearly twists his ankle in the rush to claim the front passenger seat. It's warm here. The pair huddle in the back, Ziva's hands rubbing Tony's briskly and whatever she just whispered must have been one hell of a promise because he's smiling for the first time. Undoubtedly a vow to warm him later, hopefully in private.

In the wee hours of morning, the dark apartment's thermostat is jacked up before he bothers with the lights. Tim's typewriter sits neglected, the ideas pounding in his brain unable to be translated into typed words. His fingers are on strike. Unfortunately, his imagination is not.

In dreams, a dark haired toddler with green eyes calls him McUncle.


	12. Chapter 12

_Before Zaedah's sabbatical begins, I shall leave you with the next installment of a story that has gained more readership than anything I've ever posted. I truly thank all of you for giving me a chance to entertain! There will be more of this story and new offerings coming your way in the near future..._

* * *

**Symbiosis**

**12**

_Mothers don't corner the market on instinct._

McGee decides sometime after the ninth muted cough that the moment DiNozzo breaks into the double digits, Tim will call a doctor himself. The bullpen, undoubtedly laden with more germs per square inch than is safe for the other occupants, echoes with the choked sounds of a man who has the audacity to claim he's not sick. If Tony's not ill, McGee's turning in his badge, moving to Guam and forming a Chippendale's squad. And if Tony's not out of this office in twenty minutes, Tim is citing a third dead grandmother and leaving. Four days after taking down a sniper and saving a gang by way of incarceration, McGee had been enjoying the standard warmth of recycled air right up until Tony and Ziva exited the elevator, the former looking ready to drop and the latter seemingly holding him up by a firm glare.

The petite ninja is not yet showing, has not fallen into motherhood clichés like resting a hand on her belly and has halted all discussion of baby names. This has reduced Abby to texting McGee with her suggestions, which range from the mildly fabricated to the preposterous. Even as she cites the goal of keeping Gibbs in the dark until they've sorted out their options, Ziva's expression says this objective is as ridiculous as the name Zivozzo for a boy. Which is one of Abby's better offerings.

McGee prefers Seth for the future GQ model.

Tony still believes it's a girl. Ziva believes it's a boy. McGee believes the man won't make it til lunch.

Stubborn as he is, DiNozzo crumbles under the weight of denial and agrees to let Ducky perform an evaluation. Though the army of paperwork stands ready to topple the weak, there will be no siege for the duo today. The oddly-pampering woman leads the gasping man to the gallows of Bethesda, where a specialist prepared to deal with a plague survivor waits with latex gloves and a cold stethoscope. And the moment the elevator doors close, the whole of a Lysol can is emptied until the scent of mountain air reaches suffocation levels.

The odor displeases Gibbs, who is driven to Abby's lab to escape the fumes. But it smells like health to McGee, who batters his remaining paperwork into submission in time to watch Dog the Bounty Hunter on the new big screen television that his royalties purchased. The overcooked popcorn is bathed in _I Can't Believe They Think It Passes For Butter_ and he settles in to watch someone else hauling criminals to prison, awed once more by the 80's glam rock reject's ability to switch from hunter to harbinger of sage advice. Perhaps they don't do enough of that in NCIS, the creepy guidance counselor approach that may well inspire their targets to change their professions.

He'd consider it, but the leather looks painful.

Before he can wonder if breastfeeding will lend Ziva the chest of Dog's wife, McGee's cell phone nearly vibrates off the table.

"Hey Abby," he greets and hears the anxious energy sizzling through the line. He smiles, chalking it up to their renewed closeness. "You're missing some good popcorn."

"In the history of screwing up, I now stand at the pinnacle and it's possible that village idiots are, as we speak, erecting a shrine in my honor."

At least they're just worshiping her. Some days, he's their appointed spokesperson.

"I'm sure it's not that bad."

"Seriously, McGee. They're taking my picture for the illustrated dictionary. The entry will be '_stupid_.'"

The sweet gothness that is his ex-girlfriend has been known to love people into cardiac arrest, so whatever she's done is doubtlessly accidental and likely colossal. And the cold sweat prickling at his back has McGee sitting up fast enough to send popcorn into the murky depths of his couch cushions.

"You told Gibbs, didn't you." Little point asking what is being broadcast via Bat Signal.

The sigh is adorable and damning. "Not exactly _told_. You know how we've been eavesdropping and stuff? Well, Gibbs does it way better than us because he overheard the whole crucial part of my conversation with Ziva. Can't figure out how he does that."

Rubbing eyes made tender by the oversized flat screen, McGee infuses his voice with more patience than this painful knowledge of her will allow him to feel.

"Because you had her on speakerphone."

Weighted silence and then, "Shut up McGee. Mr Jedi freakin' Knight heard me ask Ziva if she'd been kicked yet and then he cleared his throat, so I said that I meant if she was kicked out of the hospital for threatening the nursing staff and she was too tired to be my wingwoman on the lie and disconnected on purpose and left me hanging with Obi Wan glaring at me. What kind of aunt am I to blow it like this?"

As with most stories that Abby imparts, it's a lot to take in at once and after the mental chewing is done, McGee downs a pint of orange juice to aid the swallowing process. A headache wakes in the corners of his brain.

"And you don't think he bought it?" Because really, who would?

"Not so much." Abby's frown is audible. "But we ended up with a distraction, which helped with my escape plan."

McGee's not convinced he wants to know what is capable of distracting Gibbs but she doesn't give him a chance to sidestep the issue.

"Ziva called back before he could throw the mass spec at my head," Abby says. "They admitted Tony with bronchitis."

**…….**

It's the first thing one sees, even if the memory is lost in cries and sleep. The ceiling of a hospital, with its harsh lighting adding unnecessary layers to the stark whites, never changes. A newborn doesn't retain the recollection of this initial view of life and McGee envies nothing more than that at the moment. Because the bright is hurting his eyes and the antiseptic fragrance is shriveling his nose hairs. Though Abby had indicated that his presence wasn't required, she'd made sure to detail the time and floor where she could be found. Not that he could do much, he'd reasoned even as he buckled his seat belt.

It's hard to support people who aren't there.

They've quarantined Tony, a precaution that has Abby anxious and Ziva missing. Physically available isn't the same as present in Abby's case and Tim summons all the Oprah he can muster at three am.

"He's gonna be fine, Abs. Bronchitis never killed anybody."

"Then why put him in a room that I can't decorate with black roses, huh?" She's pacing, a task made ungraceful by platform boots and the late hour. "And his lungs don't belong to just anybody, do they?"

"No, I guess that's true."

For want of any activity whatsoever to keep him alert, McGee grabs a discarded pamphlet and begins reading about the exciting new treatments for erectile dysfunction. Feeling less a man for filing away the useful knowledge, McGee stands and stretches. No matter how attractive the padding, hospital chairs are murder for the spine.

"Where's Ziva?" He's not expecting much more than the shrug Abby's given the last three times he's asked.

She reaches up to tug a ponytail, only to realize her hair is down. "She's, um, being tested."

"For what? Bronchitis isn't contagious, is it?"

"Of course it is," she snaps, hands flailing for no discernible purpose. "God, do you know nothing about viruses? But that's not… Forget it."

For reasons of sanitation, hospitals find the blandest floor tiles and then hire someone to brush a damp mop across them for mind-numbing hours. The man performing the duty looks sideways at the woman wearing a skirt that features the skeletons of dead kitties. He goes on mopping because he clearly knows the wisdom of silence.

"The baby hasn't been moving as much for the last two weeks. Tony said that if she doesn't talk to a doctor, he's checking himself out of here without treatment. I think he's been worried for awhile but Ziva keeps saying there's enough kicking to prove the baby's okay."

The part of him that has already settled into uncle-mode can't be bothered to shut the hanging mouth through which words fail to pass. It's never easy for them, he thinks with profound sadness as he reclaims his seat. The discomfort no longer troubles him.

But he's out of it like a sputtering cannonball when Ziva enters the waiting room, blank-faced and dazed. And then the impenetrable fortress crumbles to dust in his arms.

"Tony was right," she whispers, the sound like a feather brushing sandpaper. "It had been a girl."

* * *

_**Opinions are love...**_


	13. Chapter 13

_Zaedah has returned unscathed from her vacation, ended the hiatus early and now brings you the following installment. Many more to go folks, so there shall be no swift resolution for our couple just yet. Please enjoy..._

* * *

**Symbiosis**

**13**

_There is no manual for navigating the logistics of loss._

By all accounts there's a sunrise in progress. Mother Nature favors the blinding way of insisting that a body at rest instigate the daily rituals and Father Time, along with an impatient boss, waits for no man. The early hour ensures that, were it not for clouds as thick as molten rubber, a set of bleary eyes might witness the resurrection of color throwing violent pastels upon a new day.

If the weather is a witch, she knows something.

Before the aching man can exit his bed, God upends several endless barrels of rain, soaking the parched ground to precipitate what Tim McGee knows will be immediate flooding. He'll have to stomp around in the mess shortly and the prospect doesn't aid his reluctance to get up. The alarm is set to begin its cruel blaring in three minutes and then rising will be mandatory. Until then, his head sinks back into the ultra-foam pillows, which plumps around his ears to partially block the crash and slosh of angry water.

It's a cliché in law enforcement circles that it always rains on the funeral of fallen heroes. Tears from anguished angels. Rarely does this fable actually occur. McGee has attended his fair share of burials, frequently accompanied by oblivious sunshine. Eternal nature doesn't bother to obey the precepts of such temporary beings, refusing to play its part on cue. Yet another reason to approach the earth's cycles with cautious optimism in one hand while dragging perpetual disappointment with the other.

It had been sunny that day.

But on this drenched Monday morning, the heavens appear ready to besiege the world below with patented vengeance. Sobs from disturbed angels.

They're due back today. Having been granted a week of unofficial leave, the no-longer-expectant couple will have to suffer the further punctuation of loss by navigating water-logged streets to reach what promises to be an anxious workplace. The sky looks as dismal as McGee feels but should it wish to express Tony and Ziva's emotional state, the rain would be mixed with brimstone.

Let the show begin.

The previous week had been marked by a stark lack of conversation, the general mood of the place like a gothic wake. Abby hadn't helped matters, wearing the blackest of black that she owned with no other shades to break up the depression of fashion. Her mourning attire came complete with the sort of fishnet face covering only Victorian grannies sported. That she'd managed to make it look exceedingly fetching worries him. That he'd made room in his sorrow to be painstakingly turned on disgusts him. His mother would admonish that only sick people would think about sex at a time like this. Still, McGee wouldn't put it past Tony and Ziva to have spent their bereavement week working on the next Italian/ninja spud. A little thing like bronchitis certainly wouldn't hinder Tony's libido.

Tim dresses in the dim light of his room, pulling from the hanger a pale blue button-down he recalls Abby complimenting. There sits at the corner of the closet a hamper so full as to appear to be foaming at the mouth. Somewhere in the midst of the pile he catches sight of a sleeve. Reaching down and dislodging it from the fabric mountain, Tim inspects the thin sweater, finding the stain that had relegated it to the hamper in the first place. Mascara. On the whole, women don't realize the damage they can inflict to the average garment by flinging themselves with weeping propulsion at a poor, unprepared man. The small mass of trembling sadness had spoken a few damning words and collapsed into his arms, leaving a trace of her make-up in her wake. So crushed by her perceived failings, so fearful of enlightening an ill man to her body's rebellion.

And then he knows; however they spent this last week, it wasn't in creation of a replacement.

Given the power of mind-reading, one can spot a writer from three galaxies away solely based on how they spend their commute. On the soggy ride to work, the author busies his rioting nerves by crafting character studies.

A man who'd left employers every two years like a cosmic countdown was spiraling toward zero in his head, yet stayed in D.C. for nearly a decade, couldn't have been loitering here for the federally-funded coffee. Tony has family here, something Tim doubts he'd encountered in any of those cities beginning with P and B. DiNozzo wanted people to like him by way of being a charming, albeit obnoxious, pain in the ass. No one before Gibbs had likely bothered to peel back the layers of Armani armor to mine the goofy, cream-filled center. The ex-cop is everything a big brother should be, handing down the obligatory hard time while fostering deep sentiment in his own way. Tony had been content with non-related family but now, when he was so excited about adding a genuine DiNozzo to the world's population, it's been ripped from him.

'_I don't appreciate you calling my kid 'it.'_

A woman who'd killed in the name of her homeland like a faithful daughter, yet came to appreciate her adopted country enough to forsake home and its ties, couldn't have abandoned her heritage for anything less than love. Ziva had family here, a truer version than the detached relations who saw her as a means. Ziva wanted people to fear her by way of admiration for her skills and efficiency. No one before Tony had likely challenged her sense of self, her values and opinions, had wanted to exhume the softness below the trapdoor. The ex-assassin is everything a foreign exchange student should be, a stranger who melds so effortlessly into the established group that they simply won't let her leave. Ziva had been content with non-related family but now, when she was so ready to nurture an American-born symbol of love and freedom, it's torn from her.

'_Tony was right. It had been a girl.'_

Breaking his bleakness to execute a dicey slide into a parking spot made narrow by someone's compensatory Hummer, McGee gathers his geekdom like a shield and enters the office. His desk fairly glitters from the can of Pledge he'd emptied onto the dull surface two days ago. Abby has already arrived, if the folded note is any indication. –See me- it suggests in a way that infers a lack of choice.

The quiet in the building is deceptive, Tim knows as he ventures downstairs as slow as sustained upright mobility will allow. A dozen stings, stakeouts and undercovers are in process by agents engaged in their daily, dangerous lives. For them this isn't the first day of an uncharted era. But for Gibbs' team, the return of their dynamic duo heralds a change in the atmosphere. Abby must recognize this too because she's doing strange things in her lab.

The tech's hands are held out at her sides like scales and she tips them up and down with grand sweeps in defiance of the limits of human balance. Only stilt-walkers could replicate the steadiness she achieves on those platform boots.

"Amish grief," she proposes as the left hand sinks to her knees, "or a more modern melancholy?" The opposite hand practically brushes the floor.

"If by Amish you mean forsaking electricity and riding to crime scenes in horse-drawn buggies, I vote no."

Disappointed by his lack of vision, Abby drops both hands with an indignant sigh. "We need a plan, McGee. And the Amish are all about simple gestures and reflective silences." An unconvinced expression takes hold. "Aren't they?"

"I don't think mourning has a strategy."

Tsking like a disapproving teacher, Abby steps closer. "Everything has a strategy. We need to decide how to proceed in an appropriate, supportive but non-invasive manner. I mean, are there words we should strike from our verbal dictionary? Like 'dead' and 'remains' and stuff?"

He could get behind the abolishment of 'stuff.' She's clearly been up all night accompanied by the reality, as he had been, that they don't know what to say. Placating victims with manufactured sympathy is so much easier.

"Is it really our decision?" McGee toys with a loose cord at her workstation. "Doesn't this qualify as a 'follow their lead' kind of thing?"

"But suppose that backfires? I mean, if his lead is open hostility and hers is sobbing in the halls, shouldn't we take the initiative to devise a plan and thus control the path of healing?"

She's gone from side show to Zen without so much as a sip of caffeinated sugar water.

"Can't control everything, Abs."

They say people can't actually jump a mile. McGee and Abby prove otherwise.

The cough-roughened voice floats in from the doorway and once the pair comes back down to earth, they find Agent DiNozzo. No matter how impeccably dressed, the man still looks illness-rumpled. He doesn't enter the room but rather leans heavily against the steel doorframe. It's holding him up. Giving up any pretense of Quaker reserve or contemporary sympathy, the blur of black launches herself into the man, wrapping long arms around his neck as Tony course corrects to ensure they remain vertical. The ex-boyfriend living in McGee's skin watches them, rooted to the floor and only mildly jealous of the abiding closeness of these two. Not romantic in nature, it's the equivalent of the connection between twins.

The air has gone so still that McGee suspects the molecules have voted to strike. The lack of movement carries Abby's garbled whisper and whether it's Amish or modern condolences, she must have said the right thing because Tony lowers his forehead to her shoulder as the embrace tightens beyond safety regulations. The proverbial clock ticks and McGee's discomfort with this open exhibit of support has him contemplating the classic 'clearing the throat' maneuver.

If Gibbs sees this, he'll vomit.

When Abby finally releases her hostage, Tony moves aside to allow the previously hidden Ziva to endure Abby's chosen path of healing; suffocation. She bears it with forced grace. From his vantage point, Tim studies the couple and realizes that the roles Abby assigned may well be reversed. The stern set of Ziva's shoulders announces that she'll start an argument based on the pleasantries of 'bless you' while Tony appears to be the one who's holding back an emotional breakdown by sheer will and designer clothes.

As though remembering other people exist, DiNozzo spares an appreciative glance at the silent, waiting man.

"Come on, McFollow-Their-Lead. We've got work to do."


	14. Chapter 14

**Symbiosis**

**14**

_Some days, even inanimate objects will fight back on principle._

Among the horde of things that have carried them to this moment, the least consequential seems to be the vehicle. Many times they've ridden into battle wrapped in the relative safety of standard black steeds, all revving engines, shining chrome and climate control. Yes, the government-issue sedan that fools no criminal on God's sphere has brought them swiftly into this dangerous place and promptly died. There's nothing like gunfire to aid one's attempt to jumpstart a car.

When time allows for the placement of blame, McGee will assign the majority to every automobile manufacturer who'd accepted government bailout money only to produce a car that bails in an emergency. The rate at which the tiny metal projectiles cut past his ear increases and conversely, McGee's fingers decrease their usefulness. Tony and Ziva are somewhere inside the building, which had lately been a factory but must have started life as a witch coven. At his side, Gibbs fires off rounds in no special hurry, muttering something about saving ammunition. Saving lives would be welcome too, but apparently the killer college kids haven't made that part of their pledge.

The car doesn't like him.

Or maybe it's rebelling against the lack of atmosphere it had been treated to on the drive here. It might have heard from its brethren, gossiping in the NCIS parking lot, that debates, taunting and head-slapping tend to occupy the many extended miles between the Yard and wherever the bad guys have stashed the bodies –a word which, according to Abby, they shouldn't say anymore. There had been none of that this morning and the professional silence has eaten significant chunks out of McGee's comfort level. From his boyhood until now, he continues to be the car sick type and enduring a distraction-free ride had done nothing for the heavy breakfast still fighting its way back to open air.

The downside of working under the hood during a firefight is the necessary exposure of his… practical assets.

When he tells the story later, Agent McGee will hail the wonder of justice that is Leroy Jethro Gibbs. The narrative will contain a riveting account of the crouched boss, in casual defiance of the bullets sailing past, opting to 'stretch his legs' and proceeding to take out an especially vile perp while kicking the car's grill in such a manner that any engine would translate it as 'move or I'll haul a car crusher to you!' Of course, McGee will glaze over his won endeavors, which had neither started the car nor inconvenienced any gunmen whatsoever. A wise storyteller knows when to keep his own unflattering role vague in the face of a far better tale.

Because, based on the LJG maneuver, the vehicle fires with a fresh determination to remain bullet-ridden but essentially intact. The lessening of popping sounds indicates a thinning of the sinister herd from within the factory and in the span of a lavatory break, Ziva peeks her head out of a broken third story window to give the boss an all-clear gesture. Tony emerges from the rusted cellar door, brushing cobwebs from his sleeve and, pivoting, makes visual confirmation of his partner. She's loitering at the window, seeming to appraise the abundant and darkening clouds, finding them unsatisfactory. The Hubble Telescope could pick up the frown crossing her ageless features and her expression is certainly not hidden from DiNozzo, who wisely drops his gaze and heads for the smoking vehicle.

That a curious glance is all Tony affords the pocked finish signals Armageddon.

Snark is, in the frustrating experience of a recurrent target, a thing to despise when dispensed in large quantities. The standard vat from which mockery is routinely ladled has now been drained and left to dry-rot in an alley marked 'inappropriate.' Even Gibbs, a man purposely oblivious to the concept of tact, has allowed precious little to escape his pressed lips that couldn't be labeled necessary for the function of the team. But teasing, in its varied degrees, has a place in this life, which McGee wouldn't have believed a month ago when his keys were so strongly magnetized that he'd ripped a cuticle trying to pry them from the elevator door.

Sustaining delicacy is trickier than navigating a high school corridor with a 'kick me' sign plastered to one's back. There are a finite number of emotional outlets for people who engage in the enforcement of law and the absence of sarcasm feels like the loss of an inalienable right. And for thinking that thought, McGee realizes that his selfishness has reached a plateau known only to wet toddlers and dry drunks. But no one has put him in his place for a week and he's forgotten where to stand.

Mothers recognize Gibbs' crankiness as a precursor to a diaper change.

They ride alone in the unfortunate Ford, the crime van racing back to the office with samples for Abby while a squad car speeds ahead, transporting the captured punks to the office for interrogating. McGee's not sure if opening his mouth will earn him a spot next to the dea-… non-living fellows in the coroner's truck behind them. Still, silence is one of those things, along with bookshelves, that geeks are universally compelled to fill.

"Tough day, huh?" As opening hits go, this drops a foot from the plate.

When a grown man snorts, it often signifies amusement. But today it suggests that a satanic hog lives inside Gibbs' nasal passages. But the one-sided conversation is an ancient art that McGee mastered during puberty.

"Nothing but paperwork between us and a beer, right? I mean, all that carnage makes this a pretty open and shut case."

After all, it's unlikely that the two corpses, currently being lectured by Ducky, are in a position to appeal their sentence.

"You think, McGee?" Finally, something familiar. The tone says _shut up_ but the resulting quiet says _fill me_.

Hands squeezing the steering wheel, McGee lets the ramble take over.

"I thought I'd invite Tony and Ziva out tonight. Nothing formal or fancy, of course. You know, unwind and get things back to normal."

Having an intimidating man use hard eyes to gouge holes in the skull makes it difficult to concentrate on the road, hence the pothole, the rumble strip and the corrective swerve. Five painful minutes into the visual excavation, McGee dares to shift his eyes in the direction of his passenger. What he finds there inspires a rededication to focused driving.

"Think a few drinks might fix things, McGee?" Gibbs' voice slips into a comfortable taunt. "That's giving alcohol miraculous powers. Maybe you could spill a keg in Iraq and end the war."

Conventional wisdom dictates that the best way to reply to sarcasm is to not reply. But McGee's mouth prefers to operate with a foot wedged inside.

"I'm just saying…"

"When people say 'I'm just saying,' what they usually mean is 'I know you don't agree but that won't stop me from ramming my theory down your throat.' I hear what _you're_ saying but _I'm_ just saying that you'll leave them alone."

That the plan of an after-work drink could cause a dressing down has McGee steaming in silence for the rest of the drive. He spends four miles swallowing hard past the indignant lump in his throat and two miles considering his counter-argument for not, in fact, leaving them alone. The final mile has him asking rhetorical questions under his breath. What's wrong with commiseration? What about support? And how much of Gibbs' irritation is based on the team's knowledge of recent events before he did? But something tells Tim that Gibbs had never been in the dark.

He brakes a little too fast when securing his parking spot, jolting the occupants forward uncomfortably. An apology comes rushing to his lips but McGee bites down hard. There'll be no more signs of weakness today, thank you.

The police cruiser and the evidence van arrived well before them and now both sit at the back entrance as the last of the boxes are removed. The faint patter of new rain pelting the roof keeps time with their footsteps as McGee and Gibbs approach the abandoned vehicles. Just in time.

It might be said that the Israeli dynamo has flipped, but McGee would make a pack with the devil before mentioning it to the little woman stomping through the halls as though each thunderous step slays some personal dragon. Apparently, the perp who'd survived the Dodge City reenactment had spoken unfavorably of his new babysitters because what is waking across his face will be a stunning shiner by morning. Tony hands the slumped man over to the waiting staff, looks in her loudly retreating direction and rather than follow, he disappears into the nearest stairwell. Moments later, a reluctant Ducky starts a perilous path after the miniature storm while Gibbs grips the handle to the stairway door. Having no predetermined role in this drama, McGee opts to trail after the silver-haired man.

To the roof they climb, McGee stepping lightly. He knows that Gibbs recognizes he's obtained a living shadow, but there's no reason to call additional attention to his presence. If anything, Gibbs might be glad for the back up. The outside door is thrown open against a strengthening wind and Gibbs strides to the retaining wall where, should he lean any further, Tony might be shortly departing. The rain has stopped already. Elbows rest on the oversized bricks and the scene below, a busy enclave in the throes of a five pm exodus, is considered as intently as a boy staring at a trapped firefly. As though something might happen if he waits long enough.

Gibbs will see that it does.

"Grumpy as all-fired hell, isn't she?" The permanently abrupt man observes.

"Bad few weeks."

It's all the explanation Tony feels compelled to voice but Gibbs doesn't handle interrogations for nothing. Joining his senior at the railing, leaving McGee to guard the only safe escape route, the older man gazes down at the slicked view, likely logging the position and destination of every vehicle and pedestrian. It's a long way down but any author would mention how inviting it must look to the brokenhearted.

"Can't blame her for the temper. I'd actually be glad to see some out of you."

The typically energetic man seems to have worried himself into a boulder that's incapable of temper. Or apparently speech, which Gibbs is failing to drag from a stone tongue.

"You've always been able to talk to me, Tony. And I'm standing right here."

They've all seen the emotions chipping away at the warm center of Tony's eyes, the near lapses of poise when it appears that Tony's a slim blink away from breaking down. But this long and complicated case has seen him locking it all away like a decision reached and forged into a vow. It's only made the quiet gulf between him and Ziva widen. She's a barreling train and Tony's a lone figure daring it to mow him down, as if too tired to yell at the oncoming disaster and perhaps hoping it will take him out.

Gibbs treads the tense water as long as his figurative legs can withstand but McGee sees the head shake and knows the unloading is coming.

"I'm betting you haven't touched her since…" the sentence trails as Gibbs lifts his eyes to the one to whom he's assigning gentle blame for the ninja's hair-trigger mood. "What're you afraid of, Tony?"

There's a stabilizing breath, a flex of the jaw but not a word is issued.

"You think," Gibbs continues, "it'll happen again? That's no way to li-"

"Why not? You do it." The bitter tone could erode paint.

Taking the accusation in stride, Gibbs nods like they're agreeing on weather patterns.

"Yup. Lost two people at once and damned if it doesn't hurt every minute." Difference is you still have Ziva. But right now son, she doesn't have you."

Despite Tony's attempt to shut it down, the impact of his replacement father's comment rises from him like steam, altering his stance, dropping his shoulders and unhinging the locked jaw. Gibbs raises a hand, perhaps intending to pat the grieving man's shoulder. But he thinks better of it and instead the hovering hand scratches at a chin two days past the call of the razor.

"Don't make her go through this alone. And don't do this to yourself." Turning to exit, Gibbs pauses before his elongated shadow reaches McGee. "A few weeks ago you told me that you didn't feel deserving of this many blessings. You were wrong. But even the most worthy can't stop the course of nature. If you ever make your own list of rules, don't forget to add that one."

In the manner of an ice age, Tony's nod is slow in arriving. His eyes remain on the street below, for which McGee is relieved. He doesn't know how to label what he's likely to find there.

Two hours and no beers later, a cricket-infested night wraps around the emotionally safe confines of McGee's apartment. Having wandered aimlessly for several minutes, his hand lays itself on the sole item he'd received from his late grandmother, a woman who preferred the dispensing of wisdom over gifts. He doubts he even knows how to use it; the gift or the wisdom. Thus the Holy Bible sits unopened, unread and unhelpful.

But this doesn't stop Tim from sending an informal petition skyward.


	15. Chapter 15

McGee's earned a bit of freedom, don't you agree? No one deserves a night out as much as a geek...

For Ryalin, Mia, Yee and Kew121 (thanks for the constant kindness)

* * *

**Symbiosis**

**15**

_However plentiful the flow, liquor solutions always run dry._

Hidden in the few lands still untouched by sterile, marching progress, there are tribes who value a state of altered consciousness for the sole reason that their gods come closer to the soil when the people are elevated to the heavens. This is accomplished by the consummation of various potions mixed by the wrinkled hands of honored elders. It should be noted that the constructers of the sacred elixir decline to partake in the concoction themselves.

And that's a clue.

Tim McGee watches as the bartender squirts a thin, beige fluid into an oversized martini glass and inspects the mixture with a practiced eye and the dry lips of one who doesn't drink on the job and curses the inconvenience. An umbrella is added because somewhere a mirror breaks if a feminine drink goes unshaded. With a steady hand and casual disinterest, the bartender passes the full glass to a short fellow wearing a crisp white shirt and hair so gelled it reflects light. And the assumption that the stranger has purchased the drink for his girl is dashed by the immediate downing of the beverage. There's a satisfied belch and a second is ordered. Looking at his own curvaceous wheat beer glass burdened with thick foam atop amber smoothness, Tim wonders if girly drinks hold some secret benefit untapped by the routinely manly. The tendency to think he's missing out on something never fails, sober or otherwise.

It's the sort of outing that deserves company. Outside lives a night that refuses to darken, the whole of the local population lighting up neon signs and street lamps in such force that the ancient features of evening stand no chance. The crowd inside the drinking establishment fares no better for the addition of stadium-strength, colored bulbs to the meager dance floor. Weirdness breeds under multihued illumination. That in this public setting McGee finds himself seated next to a naked human is proof. That the person is male bothers him less each time his glass is refilled. It occurs to Tim on the fourth serve that he's the only one in this place not being kissed, groped or otherwise manhandled. But alongside the fifth drink is poured a timely revelation.

There are no women here.

Tripping an indirect line to the door, McGee squints against the mist and checks the bar's sign at the curb to determine what manner of facility has impacted his revenue for the week. The Bent Claw, featuring a cat's paw serving as the W and whiskers around the B. The rainbow in the corner explains the lopsided gender representation. And the guy who'd kept winking at him. At least, thinks the brain that's operating the body with minor instability, the stranger was on the upside of the attractive meter. Not that McGee pondered such things, but it was faintly rewarding to know that if he had swung that way, he could have netted a specimen suitable for framing.

The paleness of the sky, which nightly loses its battle with electric glow, doesn't carry over into his apartment, which is robed in the kind of black that feels heavier than McGee's stupor. This is exactly why he never drinks alone; he relies on the scrutiny of others to keep him from engaging in foolishness. But the somberness of recent weeks would not fade without an outlet. Abby's bowling, Palmer's working out the kinks with his inequitable supermodel and Gibbs had warned McGee about involving the complicated pair in any out-of-work activities. Though an ex-marine should recognize the potentially therapeutic value of a good drinking conference.

Death impedes one's social life.

The sobering process, never pleasant at any hour, dawns on his aching head at approximately three am, coinciding with the Smurf ringtone he'd apparently downloaded while eating beer nuts. The tinny rendition of the theme song explodes a few blood vessels in his head and La La La's him all the way to the medicine cabinet. McGee's throat is asked to swallow just one more gulp of liquid before he answers with a croaking, "What?"

"That you, McGee?"

Abby's voice, normally an agreeable thing of sensual tones, comes across the line like a chainsaw on stubborn iron. No conversation with the excitable woman has ever been conducted in a hush, thus the pained man holds the phone as far from his ear as the average arm will allow.

"What'dya need, Abbs?"

"Apparently, I need a lot less black coffee than you." The smugness is thick enough to spread on toast. "I'm getting a jump on sample processing but I'm guessing I shouldn't expect an early CafPow for my troubles."

Only if he can deliver it while remaining in fetal position, he thinks, though the sentiment arrives in the garbled mush of, "Na-uh."

The tenderhearted being takes in his plight and responds with what she must presume is sympathy.

"So you went out and got blasted on two umbrella drinks and a lemon drop, right? For shame, Timmy. Maybe you should have hung out with my nuns instead and learned about piety. Or at least moderation."

The part of him still able to employ reason beyond the fog wants to protest the assumption. He'd managed five beers and a wink, dammit. Why can't he get credit for those skills? Unfortunately, it's the entirely wrong talent that he broadcasts over the phone.

The vomit classifies as colossal.

**….**

Perhaps his grandmother knew a thing or two besides the best type of gravy for turkey. In the head-splitting morning following a bout of stupidity, McGee has christened his pre-drinking prayer as the benefactor of his good fortune. A day off, which is as rare as dirty socks on the floor of McGee's orderly, albeit fuzzy, world. Though the headache is likened to an especially angry miner picking through his brain matter for gold, there's something freeing about an unplanned stretch of hours unburdened by responsibility.

For once he wishes he wasn't so square.

And then he mocks his use of such an old-fashioned, if geometrically sound, description. He can't sit productively at the typewriter if his powers of verbal creativity are limited by residual alcohol fumes. And that he's already envisioned himself chained to a stiff chair to use his fingers for the same purpose that a workday would require has him dressing in a mad hurry and stepping into a sun that isn't glad to see him. Death may wait for all but life waits for him right this second in the world outside. It's blinding, as if punishment for an errant night that would, in fairness, only qualify as debauchery if he'd woken next to a stranger. Or two.

The mammoth ode to corporate literature with which he is associated comes into view and this becomes the purpose of the day. Striding inside the Barnes and Noble and verifying with a federally-trained sweep of bleary eyes that none of his books appear on the bargain rack, McGee heads to the high literature section and uncovers his target bent at the waist in what his kind, romantic heart will dub a shapely pose, regardless of the unflattering angle. An approach is made, excuses follow and finally, though April seems reluctant, Agent McGee is able to secure another date. A woman who'd been stood up twice previously in favor of his duty is not prone to forgiveness but the promise of an expensive meal does wonders for her disappointment.

She's still holding out for a bit part.

So is he. The unfinished manuscript of his latest work sticks its papery tongue out at Tim every time he passes the Remington. It has no ending. The projected plotting has fallen apart along with his friends and any attempt to resurrect any sort of optimism for Tommy and Lisa's future is ultimately strangled by reality.

And reality polishes off his free day with a summons to report to the office. There's a newly enlisted man who will advance no further in his military career, having opted instead for a brief stint as a speed bump for a getaway car. It was a game of chicken the man clearly lost. From his hunched position over a set of tire tracks, McGee watches Tony and Ziva arrive on scene and Tim's smile rivals the wattage of last night's neon frenzy.

Because they stand together.

Later, McGee will attest that a convergence to a better emotional space is evident not just the constant return to a tight proximity, it's the thawed glances as one photographs and the other interviews. It lives in the voices no longer thickened by cold anguish. It dwells in the rebirth of Ziva's shy smile. And after wrapping up the samples and an impromptu gathering in the lab, it inhabits Tony's quiet request.

"We have a favor to ask…"

_We_ signifies a return to symbiosis and in the face of his friends' renewed unity, McGee is willing to agree to anything. Except taking April to the Bent Claw.

Ziva links her arm with Tony's and the two present a reenactment of a wedding cake topper.

"Though there are no ashes to bury, we feel some sort of closure would be… helpful."

Tony's hand seeks hers, no longer incapable of touching what is so clearly his. "There's a monument outside of town that engraves the names of the unborn. We had it done yesterday and we'd like our family there when we see it tomorrow."

"Which is everyone in this room," Ziva says.

Something further is mentioned about not being compulsory and the group splinters into three factions; Abby, Ziva and Ducky in one corner and Gibbs and Tony near the door, leaving Tim and Palmer standing in the room's center. Jimmy's a discrete lad, which McGee comes to appreciate as the coroner's assistant slides a fresh tissue under the table. The moisture he dabs away gives Tim no hope of making it through tomorrow dry-eyed. He hadn't considered that the baby had a name.

It breaks his heart that she'll only exist on a monument.


	16. Chapter 16

_A constant and adoring** thank you **for continuing to take this journey with me. If this is in any way unsatisfactory, please don't hesitant to toss complaints into the drop box below..._

* * *

**Symbiosis**

**16**

_There's nothing permanent about promises carved in stone._

Having recently been chastised for frequent misrepresentations of sad events, the weather has apparently come down with a case of rampant nerves, made manifest by the fact that the sky clearly doesn't know how to proceed. Upon waking this morning, McGee had been greeted by the sound of soft rain, a suitable response to the expected outlook of the day. But the moisture cleared as he shaved, returned as he ate and now, with his hand on the car door, the sun has emerged with a blinding determination to take control of the whole affair.

But the clouds won't be bullied.

Above his head a schoolyard brawl is underway, long stretches of fibrous gray particles trying to play point guard against the blazing orb. It's a losing battle and hopefully not a portent for the day. Thus far the omens have included but are not limited to: nicking his chin while shaving, spilling orange juice on his first choice of attire and the return of the cursed cowlick. He'd considered taking the bloody razor to his scalp to banish it.

And now this.

Abby has a unique take on what a moment calls for. Waiting at the curb, the fidgeting woman looks like an understudy for the sky. Engaged in a shoving match with her own ensemble, Abby registers the car idling before her and gives the skirt a final disciplinary pat. It's gray, as is the shirt, the trouser socks and the pill box hat. Gray in a way that goth people should not attempt because clothes know when they're not wanted and her personal vibe could not be less welcoming to such ordinary fashions. Not that the outfit is poorly constructed, were it situated on the body of a suburban mom or an upwardly mobile career girl.

McGee's suit, the second choice after the Demon Juice Debacle, borrows from the age-old standard that gentlemen should dress in dark blue when the circumstance requires respectful gravity. What few classic films he'd bothered to watch, mostly to comprehend the plot points Tony finds relevant to cases, bears him out on the principle of a navy blue blazer and a white shirt to illustrate seriousness. Nevermind that Ziva had reminded them by text last night that the gathering would be informal.

There's nothing casual about saying goodbye.

The GPS coordinates lead them from the yawning city, past industrial sprawl and through the suburbs. Eventually the tree line grows thicker, lush canopies shielding the evidence that this piece of sky had won its volley with the goaltending clouds. The drive is pleasant, if devoid of speech. An occasional sniffle fills the space that music would typically inhabit and he wonders if humming would be inappropriate. A gruesomely large beverage had been purchased for the pretty girl at his right and she stares it down as though caffeine is visually absorbable. He's about to shove the plastic cup into her hand, saving her considerable eye strain, when the scenery becomes more important than her deliberately unrequited thirst. As the country lane wanders through a relaxed expression of green and brown, McGee begins to recognize certain aspects of the location.

"Murder scene up ahead," he informs his passenger before the indecency of the sentence strikes him. Abby looks at first distressed, next interested, and then distressed about being interested.

"If you're playing tour guide," she grouses, "you've got the right jacket for it. Just need a pocket patch and a laminated badge."

Even men who don't understand women could decipher the tone but McGee knows her too well to find offense.

"It's gonna be okay. This is a good thing they're doing." There's a comforting pat on her knee and a realization that her attire in no way stimulates him.

Shrugging, she keeps her make-up deprived face turned to the window.

"You disagree?" Tim surmises, knowing that eventually silence will eat at her down to the molecular level.

This time the shrug is followed by a sigh and he expects that whole conversations could be held with these cues alone. It's like Morse code for the unhappy.

"You think they shouldn't do this?" Disbelief raises his octave to an unpleasant pitch. "I mean, we're almost there and you're not onboard?"

The trifecta of shrug, sigh and sniff serves as an answer and Tim is glad that he'd talked her into leaving at his normal schedule of _way too early_. It gives him time to usurp the next empty driveway and park the car. Trusting in fate just enough to believe no one's going to defend their strip of dirt with a sawed off shotgun, McGee unbuckles his seat belt to adjust his body for optimal viewing of Abby's face, which is stuck in the glum position.

"Spill it, Scuito," he orders with a failed Gibbs impersonation.

She shifts, sinking further into the bucket seat and reapplying her solemn gaze to the cup holder, which cradles her untouched liquid salvation.

"I just don't know that engraving a name in stone is the right thing to do."

Nondescript birds hop along the path before them, digging for nourishment and his brain mimics the effort, mining her objection for understanding. Isn't it a Wiccan thing to believe the written word has power? Or is that just Reading Rainbow?

"Gotta do something," McGee reasons. "Not like there's much to bury."

Her eye roll signals that his logic has been deemed unsound and possibly insensitive.

"Couldn't they do a symbolic rock in the garden or something?"

The furrow in his brow might become permanent. "Abby, they both live in apartments, so no gardens. Plus, are you talking about those hide-a-rocks people stick spare keys in as a memorial to a child?"

"'Course not. But… I mean, shouldn't this be private?"

Did he miss the embroidered invitations? Is Abby expecting paparazzi? Recalling the Road of Country Solitude behind them, McGee can't imagine a much more private assembly than this promises to be. Shifting into trained investigator mode, McGee turns a psychological eye to the woman currently trying to melt into the seat.

"Private? Meaning we're not allowed to be there? What about your big speech on strength in numbers?"

"But they'll see…" the mousy voice trails into vapor.

And now he's caught the shrug virus. "Of course they'll see. I think closure's the point here."

The abrupt huff suggests that Abby's finally returned to her own body. "Not Tony and Ziva. _Strangers_." That the word is hissed makes Tim lean back just a fraction. "They're gonna see her name and, and…"

He waits five heartbeats before prompting, "And?"

"And not _know_ her." It's finished in a choke. "They'll see a name with no face. Just like us."

The light bulb over his head is a solid, glaring thing. "Is it strangers who don't deserve to see the name or is it us?"

Like his well-meaning but inept ancestors before him, McGee can't handle a crying woman. It's a gender-specific failing which has him furthering his lean away from the splashes and wretched sniffing.

The soggy mumble contains roughly fifty words muted by moisture no tissue is sturdy enough to safely collect and the only intelligible phrase he catches is, "Shoulda known."

She's implying that new regulations for a successful agent include enough psychic prowess to have foretold the impending loss. Clearly she's expecting too much from the fabled feminine intuition. He's pretty sure even the nearly-clairvoyant Gibbs couldn't have seen clues. Lacking alternative, he morphs into McDucky.

"We've been here before. An old crime scene's just up the road. I remember because it was the most perfect tree-lined road I'd ever seen. Last thing a Navy chaplain saw, apparently. I interviewed the brother, missing the blood on his shoes, the holes in his story and the general 'he did it' vibe. Let him get into his car. But Tony took one look at him and shot out his tires. He knew because he'd gained Gibbs' instincts through osmosis."

She's not impressed. "Your point?"

"Tony's spidey senses only told him something was wrong with the baby after it was too late. I mean, it's Ziva's body and even she didn't realize. How were we mere mortals supposed to know?"

"So you're saying it's their fault?"

"No." Exasperation seeps in as time elapses too quickly. "I'm saying it's not ours."

"You don't feel responsible?" Abby asks as though seeking permission to feel the same.

"I feel sad. But we should be here, doing this."

Squeezing her hand, McGee turns the key, backs out of the driveway and waits for the GPS to course correct. The road and its splendid trees lay for an apparent eternity ahead, stretching to the horizon until it comes to an abrupt end at a quaint community park. It's paved with decomposed granite path mix that will add an unfortunate shade of red dust to the black car. It must have rained here and McGee ponders the significance of this as he parks next to a row of similarly discreet government vehicles. It looks like a sting operation in progress.

Gibbs, Palmer and Ducky wait in the parking lot like soldiers lacking orders. McGee and Abby join them with a round of head nodding to suffice as greeting. No one wants to speak, mostly because no one knows what to say. They've commended good people to the ground before but nothing about this feels familiar. When the Mustang pulls up, the collective expressions of the mini-crowd shifts between relief and awkwardness. Despite the glare on the windows, McGee is witness to a moment.

When the tough guy lifts their joined hands and places a kiss on her knuckles, the hard woman cannot conquer the smile. Individually they are the most incomplete people Tim has ever known but together the sum of their fragments is a symmetrical whole. Even now, on this day that commemorates tragedy, they represent the purest outcome of an intricate merger. The rough patches are smoothed by effort and compromise.

Whatever blockade Abby had fostered this morning disintegrates in her brother's arms. She fairly clings but, to McGee's surprise, she neither weeps nor babbles. Ziva wraps a slender arm around Tony's waist as he returns Abby's vice-like embrace.

A group hug for hardened agents.

The sun sets a glitter to the remnants of the pre-dawn shower as they follow a cobblestone path away from the soccer fields and playground in a fit of symbolism that tightens McGee's collar. His blue blazer has turned thermal and the residual dampness is soaking into his shoes. And then he spots the monument.

From a distance, McGee decides that the small obelisk could be likened to the Washington Monument if God had accidentally crushed it underfoot. A thick base bears the weight of flowers and teddy bears, items of personal value and trinkets of those the place is meant to represent. But moving closer, the gray upright slab begins to look less like an oversized tombstone than a piece of modern art. The brass plaque at its foundation explains that a local artist had donated her time and talent to turn the once square block into a complex bas-relief of vines and flowers, lending the cenotaph a Roman elegance that belays its purpose. There are hundreds of small ribbons carved into the stone, some blank but most adorned with no more than a name. No dates. No messages. Just a collection that reads like a top fifty list of popular baby names. Hailey, Ella, Madison, Christian, Jacob, Taylor.

Ziva rounds the corner, stopping where an eastern sunrise will daily kiss the stone and her fingers trace the outline of a ribbon. Tony waits to approach, giving her time to digest what she sees. But the stubborn Israeli no longer seeks to function alone and her free hand is extended for her partner to claim his place at her size. His green eyes are shadowed by emotion McGee's never seen there before. Placing two fingers to his lips, Tony presses them to the ribbon and Ziva's composure collapses. Into his sleeve she hides her face as he leads them a few steps away.

Remaining in the shadow of the monument, the parents who arrived without their child will surely leave with a piece of the unborn more deeply carved into their souls.

Swallowing hard, Gibbs moves to the ribbon and accepts the name as one might a communion wafer. Reverently. A slight nod, a greeting of sorts and he steps back, gesturing to Abby to come forward. The girl who wears trepidation as badly as her tasteful clothes shuffles up to the stone, eyes practically closed. She's still not prepared to know the name for a face she'll never see. Removing the tour guide jacket and letting it fall to the wet grass, McGee adds his presence to hers, sliding his finger beneath her chin to raise her eyes.

"We're not strangers, Abs. We're allowed to know her name."

A moist sniff and she opens her eyes, their vision arriving simultaneously on the same engraved ribbon.

_Nehama Caitlin DiNozzo_


	17. Chapter 17

**Symbiosis**

**17**

_Humility's a nice place to visit but you wouldn't want to live there._

When pressed, McGee's ego will allow that he's reasonably adept at creating stories. Not aloud, of course, when critical listeners fix on the teller and rely on inflection and theatrics for the enjoyment of the tale. Public speaking is, in its many horrid forms, an ancient torture device invented by frustrated medieval nuns and inflicted upon shy schoolboys down through the ages. By comparison, the blank page is a rigidly silent thing warmed by the addition of black marks to form words better heard in the privacy of the mind. It's the kind of voice he prefers, one that lets him remain in seclusion, a safe and anonymous distance from the faceless masses reading his work and judging him.

Thus, in-store signings are a nightmare scarcely tempered by the prosaic overhead music.

The innocuous tones of an orchestra paying its bills by trying to force intricate notes from a mid-eighties rap song creates a sour atmosphere in which Thom E. Gemcity must make his case for literary supremacy. Trend-watchers often cite that what's old is made new again, but in this case, what's old is made older still. And grating as the wooden chair only grows harder. The CD is on repeat just to spite him, cycling through the same eleven offerings of early hip-hop favorites being put through a symphonic grinder. The store's population of white males mutter under their collective breaths, proud that they still know all the words. It's sad.

No gangsta would dare hum along to Snow's Informer but McGee lacks other distractions.

The morning has been spent behind a pile of _Deep Six_'s new paperback edition and what had been a decent wave of admirers has dwindled. There's still a steady flow approaching his folding table where, at the corner, a Meet The Author poster promotes his purpose here. But the stream of customers sails noticeably past. April, the engineer of this little session, hadn't taken into account the store's other hawker. The competition behind him has no table and no tool, but she sashays to the orchestral rendition of O.P.P. without looking ridiculous. Pride alone keeps McGee's head from bouncing off the table.

Only he would attempt to reach into his reading audience's consciousness on the same day that a local eatery sends a representative to hand out coupons. How exactly is he supposed to compete with a Hooters girl?

Books versus boobs. No contest.

That April is expressing renewed interest in his extracurricular career tells him two things; A) that his first career hasn't demolished all chances of romance with a sensitive, tear-prone woman and B) that the tag of 'professional writer' still impresses the literary set. Naturally, she's waited until the resurrection of McGee's awareness in Abby to decide that he's worth forgiving. Though Tim has cancelled more than one date with April for the sake of work, he should have axed this one for the sake of vanity. One more hour and he's packing up his rickety table. And not returning the author poster bearing his likeness.

"Are you Mr. Gemcity?"

Clearing his disused throat, McGee turns to face a pierced midriff and a pair of bangled arms clutching a hardback copy of _Deep Six: Rock Hollow_ like a falling baby. Looking down, he notes a skirt with the square footage of a Band-Aid and, looking up, heavy make-up almost spitefully applied. A teenager in every way except reading preferences, apparently. Clearly the girl has powerful deductive reasoning, though his smiling face on the poster might have helped.

"I am indeed," he says in a voice he'd wish someone would describe as remarkable.

The blond girl grins. "I knew it. This book totally inspired me and could you sign it so I can tell everyone how I told you that you're my favorite writer. Plus I'm going to forensics school when I graduate."

"And when will that be, young lady?" McGee adds a few unnecessary flourishes to his autograph.

Her sentence structure may require a tutor but not her innuendo sensor. "Too many years for you, silly. But once I have my degree we should do lunch because I wanna hear all about how you make the characters so lifelike and everything."

"You need a degree to have that conversation?" McGee asks before his internal editor can grab the words. "Anyway, I have a little time before I wrap up, so if you have any questions…"

Visually arranging thoughts in a head better suited for handing out coupons, the girl tugs down her tiny denim covering before sitting on the edge of the highly collapsible table. It shakes beneath the additional weight but McGee's thinking of the advantageous view that a splattered teen will provide.

"So," she begins, expression sliding from carefree oblivion to stern inquiry, "Are Tommy and Lisa a mash-up of real, actual people or, like, did you watch a lot of movies on government work and stuff?"

"I can tell you that my characters have a foundation in life but are placed in fictionalized, if purposely realistic, situations." There, that sounds democratic and authorly. "Keen observation of the living certainly gives a measure of shape to their existence but ultimately they're carefully marinated products of a vigorous imagination."

"So you're working out some kind of God complex?"

Is that sweat on his neck? "Not at all. Well, I guess it happens occasionally to the best of us. I mean, I suppose all writers feel that compulsion in the end."

Yup, sweat and now some ineffective swallowing.

"That's like, a no, a maybe and then a yes." She nods and the weight of juvenile judgment condemns him to visitorless book signings for all eternity. "Which is it?"

"The emotions of writing are complex." _And not easily grasped by novice, inappropriately dressed interviewers_, he adds.

"It's just that I think the action's kind of fake, you know? Maybe you should get out more, hang around with real agents and stuff."

When this snippet of a critic said McGee's her favorite writer, she meant he's going to endure a slow, analytical death while someone conducts a harpsichord interpretation of U Can't Touch This.

"Is that right?"

"But their arguments are totally riveting. I can feel every word like they're yelling into my ears."

It's as painful an arrival as a compliment can manage but McGee accepts it with all the grace he can dredge from his boots.

"Which is why I have a God complex, you think?"

"Exactly, because every book I've ever read has that front page," and here she performs provocative air quotes, "_any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental,_ which I never believe because there's way too many interesting people in the world not to sponge off their personalities and fix their flaws, right?"

Never has he wanted so badly to throw a bag of periods at someone. But focus on such trivialities as endless sentences is fleeting when light glints off her belly ring as she leans back, satisfied with her explanation. The store is emptying as April paces in a nearby aisle, either executing a protective mate maneuver or attempting to flag down the Hooters girl. After all, they have to eat later.

"…just my opinion," the girl is saying to his glazed face. "It's like you know them personally but never really get them."

"Sorry, you don't get them or I don't?"

"Neither of us." It's a dismissive shrug and the gem of insight makes him curious. "That's why it works."

Elbows on the table, the investigator stares down his quarry. "Okay, so they're a mystery wrapped in sexual tension inside a vat of bickering. But what do you think of the dialogue? Too much?"

"Definitely not." The hardback is given an affectionate pat. "You left them gnarled in this righteous wrath at the end, pissed at each other and ripping off snark during the whole gunfight thing and it was so real."

"Wasn't too mean-spirited?"

"But that's _them_," she enlightens their creator as if he doesn't have to scrape off the daily marks of their intensity. "I mean, if I ever get into a fight with a guy, I'm so gonna sound like Lisa. All self-assured and unflustered. She so completely rocks the feminism vibe that we should build a shrine in the parking lot."

"Wait." The compliment is missed in favor of one infinitesimal nugget. "You never have fights with your boyfriend?"

The eyelashes are batted in a coyness she's too young to completely pull off.

"Are you, like, fishing for my relationship status?"

How many ways can he protest in the negative while meaning a categorical yes? Fortunately, April is wandering with cultured disdain through the lowly graphic novel row and therefore oblivious to his male pride being trampled under flip flops. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the orange-shorted woman whose nametag is perched valiantly on the end of a chirpy left breast.

"Honey, she's out of your legal age bracket." The amount of tact in the coupon-hawker's voice wouldn't fill his molar.

"That's not my intention." It's aimed at both sets of mascara-laden eyes.

"Anyway," the denim skirted girl sighs, "thanks for signing my book and I hope the next one comes out soon with a lot of arguing and victorious feminism and stuff."

"As the muse instructs me, M'lady." Tim touches his fingers to a moisture-beaded forehead in an ancient farewell. Except the fickle tormentor won't leave.

"By the way," she tosses over an exposed shoulder. "When is the next one coming out?"

**...  
**

The typewriter stares back, unblinking but ready with the answer to his block. Despite his denials, McGee's fictional characters are greatly impacted by the very real counterparts. The conclusion of his new book had been clear in his head before the first had been pounded onto the blank page but recent events, in the relentless vacuum, of reality, have sucked the proverbial life from the characters. There's no way forward for a plot that cannot be discreetly connected to the outside world. The muse might well need a ribbon on a monument because it has passed into another existence in another dimension. Options are few; no tender staging can compare to the tragedy and he's got no hand for the comedic.

A good writer doesn't merely dramatize the truth. That's what tabloid writers do and no one labels them the next Hemingway or Grisham. Yet this is the substratum of his talent. Embellishment. It's not a turn of phrase but a twist of personalities. Otherwise, he'd have written about a pair of archaeologists, skydivers or magicians. But his sole creative writing course had laid down a fairly simple law:

Write what you know.

If bound by this rule, Tommy and Lisa would be dragged through the paces of sorrow that would wilt the paper as it takes on the words. And some part of Abby's objection about the memorial clings to his gums. Strangers would see it. The twist of grief is too private to share and certainly Tony and Ziva would not appreciate reading his meager attempt to portray such loss. Of course, he could always gift the literary couple with a child of their own but letting it survive might hurt the partners more than an accurate representation of fate.

But damn, there's so much richness to mine either way.

Maybe nameless teen critic is right. Perhaps it's the verbal conflict in which his descriptions excel. And with a furrowed brow and too much coffee, McGee glares back at the reticent Remington with a thought. The fingers start slow, gradually accelerating through the forceful yanking of an established plot into a new direction, one of total fabrication in which no reader can find fault. Tommy and Lisa collide into a common goal that will stretch and strengthen their bond, as well as exercise their quarrelling dexterity. His friends deserve some form of cosmic justice and Tim delivers it the only way he can, eliminating the entire manuscript and starting, as all things should, at the beginning.

Tommy and Lisa earn a thicker backstory. And a villain

**...**

The car couldn't be parked at a worse angle for his delicate complexion. Ziva's binoculars dangle from bored fingertips, her face turned to the beige duplex with fashionable red doors. One side contains a suburban family with a compact SUV and a nervous beagle, both of which travel past the surveillance sedan, mindless of the observation. The other half houses a petty officer who should have given up gambling after the first broken arm.

And because McGee's mouth operates on an independent frequency from his intelligence, the sunburned man says, "I looked up the name. I think I understand the significance."

"Really." Which is laced with _shut up_.

"Nehama means consolation. And I get that you'd both need that." Because unlike under-dressed readers, he does get them.

"We named her before…" the thought trails because there's no good way to end it. "And it has other meanings."

The seat belt is twisted in her irritated fingers and a sudden pity for indebted navy rats arises. The portly man picked a bad day to ignore his creditors.

And a terrible day to cook.

The suburban family will come home to a less cramped dwelling, missing a roof as it is. The sailor is carted out of the smoldering wreckage on a gurney, minus a finger and a significant amount of scalp. Stove bombs are, if nothing else, effective hairstylists.

It's some time later that the Israeli feminist emblem turns to the driver, who's busy factoring a crafty explosion into his next chapter. Fake action indeed.

"Redemption," she says. "For us, it meant redemption."


	18. Chapter 18

**_I've consulted with McGee and he tells me that he has more to say. With that in mind, I present the next installment. Feel free to leave tokens of thought when finished... _**

* * *

**Symbiosis**

**18**

_Right and wrong are just places to stand while catching a breather._

"So, when do we meet her?"

Funny how when Tony says 'we' now, it's a galactic culmination of him and Ziva. It's 'we' in the way other people think about God. Or breathing. All encompassing and uncompromising. 'We' because they're not separate entities anymore.

But there's an actual question along with that word, isn't there?

"Her who?" McGee says around a mouthful of sensible sandwich. The cafeteria is empty since their early start means the mid-day meal is occurring at the delightful hour of nine am.

Tony, having ordered a meal that involves more pasta than one plate can safely support, looks skyward.

"Lord, why do your misguided children insist on playing dumb when bricks already have that job covered?"

In the mold of every person who comes across a river they can't ford, McGee tries to walk the long way around.

"It's nothing special, really. Just a girl to see now and then. Well, more then than now sometimes. But I mean, she's no one. Just a time-passer." It's all dreadfully true and McGee cringes both at his words and the need to preach to the deacon of playboys.

"So you don't particularly like her but…" Tony leads with a gesturing fork.

"But she'll do for the moment." His shoulders involuntarily perform the shrug of honest timidity pretending to be rugged indifference. "You know, you left your mantle lying around and I'm just trying it for a while."

"My mantle?" Tony asks as though he might know the answer but wants the verbalization to justify pounding McGee into the tiles.

"Resident gigolo," Tim mutters, considering which side of his face is best suited for the coming shiner.

His superior tilts his head and it's possible he's pondering the same. McGee's spine, a fickle traitor, begins a slow and medically impossible disintegration but the voice that Tony picks out of his new box of tricks is uncharacteristically soft.

"That's not who you are, probie. By definition, a player is someone with a rotating pantry of faceless girls. If you're not unhooking a new one from the rack at least weekly, you aren't deserving of my mantle." A bite of pasta follows this, which Tony chews thoughtfully.

The lack of beating is confusing, but it gives McGee enough security to take up his sandwich again.

"I'm sure Ziva will appreciate your pride in old ways."

The downside of the new DiNozzo Domestication is the inability to bait him. "Ziva knows who I was. Probably better than me. Had to work through all those bad habits to get to now and I'll thank you not to pick them up where I threw them."

"You're saying you didn't enjoy it?"

"Oh, I enjoyed it." The classic Tony grin, long abdicated from his features, can generate fuel for solar panels. "Love'em and leave'em ain't just for country songs."

"But I shouldn't be a cowboy, huh?" Tim should feel more insulted than he does.

Elbows on the table like a father about to give The Talk, Tony considers his junior agent with as much affection as he's ever aimed at McGee.

"You shouldn't want a revolving stock. That's for heartless men, the kind who don't recognize a good thing because they're too busy trying out the next thing."

"Is this the 'hurting others is hurting yourself' speech?"

"This is the 'don't be like me' speech."

The idea of living Tony's prior existence is one part frightening and two heaping parts fascinating. But McGee knows he has neither the luck nor the charm to attempt a proper reenactment, which is rather why he writes.

"Besides," Tony continues, "far as I can tell, you're not loving _or_ leaving. You're loitering like a teen lost in the mall. If the mantle fits, you'd be bragging, McPlayer. And I have yet to even hear her name."

"Maybe I've learned to be discreet." Feeble, thy name is McGee.

"Okay." Eyes narrowing, Tony does a damning version of Gibbs. "What's the best thing about mystery girl?"

That's like deciding the most useful application for a pencil. It's just… there.

"She's, uh, interested in my writing career."

And he's just dropped meat before the predator. "So you won her over by stringing together a mean sentence?"

Why does no one give him credit for being capable and suave? The sandwich is slapped onto his place, dislodging several chunks of tuna.

"Look, it's just that she's literary-minded and happens to be attracted to my creativity."

"You and not the prospect of red carpets and parties at Tom Clancy's house?"

Hell, McGee would date himself for that kind of life. Spreading his hands wide, McGee dares an inspection of his exhilarating night life.

"Right. Because I'm doing so much of that now, obviously. I must have missed the invitation when I was stuck in that closet with the dead guy for five minute."

"I did not close that door on you," Tony disputes as only the guilty will. "But I bet your exciting day job keeps her coming back."

The Sahara has swept into McGee's throat, making the next bite of rye a battle to deposit into his stomach. Perhaps this should be the 'lying to others is lying to yourself' speech.

"Well, not exactly," the mouse that lives in his skin admits because the harsh florescent lighting and Tony's unwavering stare remind him of an interrogation. "She stops returning my calls whenever I have to cancel on her to help people I don't know with problems I can't solve in the course of a job beneath her professional notice."

"Doesn't consider closure a solution?" There's a wealth of personal disagreement in that nearly inward tone. "And in the meantime, she does what, exactly?"

The timid mouse becomes a wheezing dust bunny. "Manages a Barnes and Noble."

Shaking his head, Tony chews on this long enough to make McGee alternately sweat and shiver. Saying it aloud corrodes the pretty fences he's been building to validate this quasi-relationship. And in the waiting he arrives at two truths; one, he's dating this cold fish to stoke a flagging confidence in his authoring chops and two, he's faintly embarrassed by her unimpressive occupation.

In the absence of suitable defense, McGee settles for the age-old sigh. DiNozzo gauges the crumb-lipped man before him, his own lunch forgotten. The shift in the air says what's coming isn't part of any labeled speech.

McGee has known two Tonys in his life, one who avoids eye contact because involuntary revelation lives there and one who holds McGee's gaze now, self-worth no longer too fragile to divulge personal truths for the benefit of others.

"Ziva told you why we named her Nehama?" The last word sticks in the man's throat and Tim wonders how many times he's practiced saying it aloud.

"Redemption," comes the respectful acknowledgment.

Which is followed by mausoleum silence, as though someone else has entered the room and no one wants to admit to that presence. Shifting on the hard bench, Tony approaches his explanation from somewhere in the middle of a memory.

"Felt like… like the baby was a pardon. All the people we hurt, all the time we wasted. We were always so hard on ourselves, on each other. But we had to get it right, you know? For the kid. She was making us better before she even had a name."

Gingerly, McGee steps toward the landmine. "And what about now?"

There's a drop in the other man's shoulders, a closing in upon himself that signals the rekindling of anguish, however brief. And yet this Tony, the one still feeling his way through the maturing of his nature, this Tony doesn't run.

"Could have done without that kind of test," he says. "But losing her cemented our commitment, which isn't a word I've ever said without a solid layer of alcohol shielding."

A flapping thread is plucked from the air and sewn into McGee's mind, something amiss with an earlier generality Tim suspects had been a self-assessment.

"You were never heartless," he clarifies. "Just searching for a good thing in all those next things. And I guess I'm doing the same. Only without the enthralling morning-after stories."

It's a grin that never ages. "My Monday morning recap was the best part of your week, wasn't it?"

"Got a book out of it."

And then the purpose of this conversation is reborn in Tony's eyes, bringing the serious greens back to McGee, inducing a squirm.

"To the good thing you give your heart. If you don't see anything in whatshername to commit so much as an artery to, don't bother. Maybe she's a beautiful intellectual who can quote your best passages, but if she's not worth mentioning in front of your friends, that probably means something."

The abandoned pasta has congealed into a mortar-like paste and Tony stands, discarding the container into the nearest receptacle. Better to leave the discourse before it descends into a soppy confessional. There's still evidence to gather but before reaching the door, Tony adds;

"I hear Abby needs a bowling partner tonight."

**…...**

"When will we be celebrating the launch of your new book?"

It's an innocent question spoken between a carnivore's lips, eager for an expensive dinner and a cocktail party.

The notion of worth and tests have lain like a spiky anvil on his mind all day and McGee grips the receiver tightly, willing April to pass on all accounts.

"Actually, I threw out the manuscript and started over. Finished page seventeen today."

Across the line there's an indelicate sound, a grinding of dead boyfriends' bones.

"You did what?"

"Following the muse in a new direction." Not that an author of his standing needs to explain to shop girls. After all, his dialogue is considered, in some unbiased circles, riveting.

Prolonged silence gives McGee time to formulate his response to her cancellation of their dinner. When she clears her throat, he clears the way for rejection. Again.

"Well, why don't we discuss this capricious muse over seafood?"

Perhaps he's a lamb being led to a delayed slaughter after a rather fishy fattening up, but the prospect of proving Tony's jaded assumption wrong has McGee ushering April to a nice eatery on the better end of town. It's not as though Tony's track record of successful romances is long enough to try to run advice on. For the price, the starvation-thin waiter is appropriately snooty and the wine list includes items the average government official can't pronounce. But his date manages to squeeze radiance out of a harshly basic dress and he's a little less single in her company. Except… except the mantle is suffocating and he's no good at alcohol shields.

Looking deeper at the woman downing lobster like it's free, Tim scans for qualities worthy of pledging a single vein. Looks deeper and comes away with eye strain and a lack of reasons for this meal in this place with this person. His father would say that there are other fish in the sea and fortunately some have missed the hungry shark gene.

One in particular comes to mind.

Outside the fogged window a man strolls by in a bowling shirt and DiNozzo's voice sinks its claws into McGee's consciousness.

_That probably means something._


	19. Chapter 19

_Normalcy for our intrepid team means a case. And so... onward!_

* * *

**Symbiosis**

**19**

_A proper man denies the existence of bodily fluids while a forensics team seeks to sample it._

It's not the most aromatic way to begin the day. Coffee under one's waking nose is ideal but even unadorned fresh air will do in a pinch. But this place is, for lack of sufficient adjectives, gross. In the manner in which a teen princess might react upon receiving toilet scrubbing duty, minus the brush, McGee steps gingerly into the mayhem, hands held aloft for fear of injury or contamination.

In college, there had been a girl who'd invented the oddest reasons for never taking McGee home. Beth's off-campus housing was closer than his and in a more trendy section of town. Her roommates were, she'd said, far raunchier than his which no twenty year old male could possibly view as a sane reason to ignore the premises. Not that he'd have known what to do with two women when one was still such a foreign substance.

In truth, her refusal to allow him into her space made Tim wonder if he'd managed enough notice at school to have earned some kind of reputation. He hadn't. Dropping by unannounced had finally explained her. There was no roommate, but there were cats. Lots of cats.

Warrant officer O'Malley must have some sort of genetic link to Beth.

It takes a special person to love the feline, a species known for independence to the point of maliciousness. It takes a deranged person to assemble them like trophies. The volume of fur collected on the porch alone could stuff a hundred mattresses and the stench is only troublesome when one decides to engage the respiratory system within a kilometer radius of the home.

Personally, McGee has no problem with the big cats of the African plains, so long as there's either an electric fence or an ocean between them.

"Not enough soap in the world," Tony mutters as the agents file into the rancher falling to ruin beneath the watchful eyes of a cluster of cats.

"Egyptians worshipped them," McGee intones, breathing through his mouth as though any other option would kill him. The thick smell is capable of standing up and walking away. Only it doesn't. "A hundred years ago, some Egyptian farmer dug up a tomb with eighty thousand cat mummies."

Ziva scoffs. "And a hundred years later every one of them turns up here."

The suspected drug manufacturer's version of home is, by the standard of certified hoarders, excessive. It's not just the magnitude of living creatures fighting for hiding places among broken furniture and piles of paper, bottles and food. It's the fumes in a structure being used as one massive, unscooped litter box. McGee holds an impotent glove to his nose and mentally wills his body to science before attempting speech.

"Even a hardcore meth-head wouldn't want anything made here."

Tony squints into the dim light of a midday held back by stained curtains. "Must be cutting his product with kittens. Gives it that… bouncy quality."

"Bouncy, perhaps," Ziva agrees. "But upon what surface would he find room to make drugs? Bomb blasts leave a scene more tidy."

Gibbs marches through the door, slapping on gloves and noting the lack of incentive in his team. "Find me some evidence."

Only longtime underlings of Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs could successfully stifle the complaint compulsion. The threat of The Glare does wonders for one's cooperation. And so, in pressed pants and shined shoes, McGee stands in streaks of what he's stubbornly calling mud to swab tabletops and counters. Despite his nose's attempt to block them, a dozen raucous scents bully their way into his nostrils and the gag reflex follows. Every step is hindered by terrified kitties peeking out of trash heaps and darting into the path of foot traffic. The fattest of the group tend to be the fiercest and Tim makes the intimate acquaintance of a poofball with claws that a raptor would envy. Nails sink into McGee's calf and his resultant yelp is on the dismal end of the masculine scale.

Fortunate it blends into the chorus of similar sounds from other team members fairing little better with the Atomic Hissers of Meth Island. And now he's thinking in B-movie titles.

"There's no food out for them," Ziva reports after photographing the ramshackle rooms. "No water. What are they eating?"

Her significant other groans like someone's sullied his fettuccini. "I wish you hadn't asked that."

Crouching reluctantly among the waste, Tony pushes aside discarded newspapers to pull out what could be, in the right light, a stuffed toy mutilated by playful animals. In the wrong light, however, it's a hand currently on sabbatical from the rest of its arm.

From the scorching swamp of the hallway, Ziva watches the dry, gnarled body part find a new home at the bottom of an evidence bag. Catching her partner's eye, the expression she fixes on him suggests a kinship with lemons. Her head tilts, voice dropping as though there's any privacy between walls so built up with feces that it echoes like a cave.

"You are not touching me after holding that."

Which is exactly the sort of interpersonal information Gibbs wants none of in the field.

"Trust me," Tony says with a muted cough as he stands. "There were five layers of latex between me and that thing."

In a nearly comical whisper, she says, "Trust _me_, we shall be using an entire box of… latex tonight."

Of course, Tony's not one to be embarrassed by inappropriate conversation, but McGee only picks up his response by leaning dangerously over what he'll pretend is spilled lemonade.

"I trust you're merely implying a long night, because I certainly can't wear them all at one time, ninja."

Stepping gingerly around piles of brown matter, Ziva crouches at Tony's side, her voice so low McGee must summon lip-reading skills.

"I trust that any sex we have tonight will take place only in a decontamination chamber."

"Kinky," Tony beams before catching sight of Gibbs, who watches his agents with a disgusted eye.

It should be romantic, how many times the word trust appears in the discourse. But at present, McGee's fighting to block the mental imagery while simultaneously registering that his double-gloved hands are painfully underdressed. He makes his slippery, tail-ridden way to the box of gloves, squeals of various pitches punctuating each step. Startled by the invasion, several cats have lodged themselves under low furniture and their exposed tails are occasionally squashed beneath the feet of gasping agents.

In a rather disturbing paradox, the smell has actually driven away the animal control reps who had caught a stunning forty-three pets before the team arrived. They should be immune to this stuff. A flock of furries remains and to the soundtrack of rebellious hissing, McGee forces so many gloves onto his fingers that they're made nearly immobile by the layers. Tony's right. No one could have enjoyable sex this way.

"Circulation helps, McGee," Gibbs snipes while pulling out a carcass by its frayed tail. "We should take a few back to Abby. See if they carry traces of anything useful."

"Besides mange, fleas and rot?" Tony tosses over his shoulder as he carefully lifts an upended box.

Two gray tabbies spring out, race toward an open window and dig their claws into the cheap screen. It bows to their frantic weight, setting in motion a fluffy avalanche that the official report will leave out entirely. It involves a scramble of quad-legged sprinters toward the promise of freedom. Ziva, nearest to the impromptu exit, jumps away from oncoming traffic with less than her typical grace. For his part, McGee watches the stampede with interest born of an addiction to the National Geographic Channel. They scurry across carpeting and linoleum with paws barely touching the ground, leaping toward the window with varying degrees of success. Cats may by athletic by nature but the principle of space to mass ratio is not working in their favor. Too many bodies rushing toward too small an escape hatch like piranhas vying for the same scrap of meat.

"My money's on the calico," McGee declares as said titan of flubber tramples over smaller specimens to secure her freedom.

Maybe if Gibbs' hands hadn't just been immersed in unidentifiable liquids, McGee wouldn't have minded the head slap so much.

"Because your last bet went so well."

"I've got kittens," Tony calls from behind a bookcase.

Rolling his eyes, Gibbs knows a delay when he hears one. And hear it they all do. In stereo. Having been discovered, the tiny balls of fuzz call for their parents with all the mournful bailing a minuscule mouth can issue. One by one, Tony pulls them from their hiding place and gently hands them to the nearest bystander. And their bastion of strength, the marine who doesn't flinch for the approach of bullets, takes one look at the wailing bundle and by the narrowest of fractions, the witnesses will later claim, gives into the cuteness. Other mortals might have melted but Gibbs does manage a sort of smirk that, on another face, would be considered smitten.

And then there are kittens slowly deposited into a waiting cardboard carrier held by a young vet tech. It's the girl's first crime scene but she has no interest in severed hands or meth paraphernalia. Instead, admirable focus is spent on walking the box through an ongoing rampage to the detriment of her flesh. They all carry the stinging wounds from battling superior machines of vengeance, especially around the ankles that stealth felines favor for sneak attacks.

The word is given to abandon the shipwreck and McGee wanders toward the sedan, removing his cap and swiping at his sweat-encrusted brow. Animal control is loading up the final batch of felines, the oldest tech fingering the gash on his cheek and muttering something about the only friendly cats being the corpses.

Cats and criminals, a hereditary match.

While Tony talks to the local sheriff in that automatically accepted way of former cops that McGee will never master, Ziva is spotted moving toward the animal control truck. A few quiet words with the vet tech and the carrier of kittens is brought to the tailgate. Looking over both shoulders. Ziva is satisfied that no one observes her, which discounts the now permanent fixture of McGee's eavesdropping. She's keeping her back turned to the team, blocking anyone from beholding her mush moment. Tim pulls his cap down and though he appears to be strangely engrossed in the exact placement of the evidence box into the backseat, he is stealthily peering over the sedan's roof.

Ziva's finger is extended to stroke a soft head, a tiny chin, a skinny tail.

The question is not _will she, _but_ which one_?

It's hardly a replacement and certainly the square footage of their new house calls for something with a bit more… girth. Glancing over his shoulder, McGee notes that Tony is taking in his partner's activity with a sliding scale of expressions. Accustomed to losing skirmishes with Ziva before they begin, his features settle on resignation.

"Orange will clash with our interior," he yells to the woman who, upon discovery, turns roughly that color.

"I am merely… seeing them off."

Tony approaches the carton of eager adornables like the contents might revolt. "And trying to stuff one in your windbreaker."

The tech puts the box into a large cage inside the truck.

"We have to run clearance tests first, rule out the kind of illnesses and genetic defects that tend to pop up in hoarding situations. But call us in a week and they might be ready."

A business card hovers between the couple, Tony staring it down in an effort to ignite it and Ziva reaches out tentatively, grasping it like the third genie wish. And McGee is prepare to call the assassin mellow. Though not to her face since he values his.

On the car ride back to the lab, Gibbs runs through the sailor's alibi with the director, who is fortunate to be missing the stench that has hijacked the vehicle. It clings like a starved kitten to a nipple. Fur-covered, battle-scarred and offensive to the olfactory, the four generally rational people exit the car with the crushing, careless speed of a demolition derby on ice. Like a fat calico leaping to freedom.

But there is something to be said for progress in all its multi-odorous forms. Though the day had been harrowing to sensitive senses, it had all the earmarks of the familiar. Like a case of old, complete with gentle sniping and the occasional head slap. And yet the additional baggage of a relationship beaten into strength by the fires hinders nothing. It's as if the planet is tumbling back into a proper orbit, making its expected turns and following the normal patterns. The group has, somewhere between babies and rabies, reclaimed a bit of its symbiosis.

So it surprises no one when, five days and fifteen showers later, a rust-colored serial maniac with whiskers is introduced as the newest David-DiNozzo experiment.

* * *

_**I do hope this story hasn't worn out its welcome yet because there are changes coming to The Tiva Show. Stay tuned...**_


	20. Chapter 20

_Shocking as it is, we've reached chapter twenty of this elongated one-shot. May I personally thank each person who has loaded up their packs and taken this hike with me. Because you've all been so kind, I present my longest chapter, which contains a few moments of 'normal.' And no, it's not over yet..._

* * *

**Symbiosis**

**20**

_There is a richness of blessings in a question unasked._

Gibbs is only managing to keep his seat at the interrogation table because gravity sees the future and won't permit the coming carnage. The room seems cramped by two determined personalities; that of an ex-marine uninterested in conducting interrogations politely and young man aged before his time who appears very interested in the civilities not often synonymous with killers. That the man is ending every sentence with antique pleasantries does nothing for Gibbs' constitution.

There is something beautifully crooked about the logic of a self-deluded man, like a fun house mirror cracked in an intriguing way. Seaman Julius Coles is presenting the kind of statement that makes the three agents behind bulletproof glass grateful for its shielding properties.

In fairness, the federal audience to the imminent breakdown consists of three bodies and two sets of eyes. Agent David waits in the background, her attention playing seesaw between the fanatical mess and the miniaturized legal notepad. The note-taking should be unnecessary for a woman whose memory is hardwired with a flash drive but McGee has learned to look beyond the props. The way she's sucking on her pen suggests that she's not tracking Coles' wobbling vehicle on the highway of lies. Too contemplative, like she gets when stealing glances at her partner, a frequent occurrence today.

Knowing the petite dynamo, she's making a list of ways to make killers pay _after_ they've been executed.

Meanwhile, Gibbs remains seated while appearing to be in the throes of a permanent lurch.

"You wanna run that by me again, sailor?"

"I said," the seaman drawls, "that if the world understood the precious justice I carried it, it would wash me in Hallmark, thanks for asking." His fingers form a steeple, a gentile posture belayed by his scruffiness.

Flipping through a file folder is a delay tactic. Gibbs has been calm of late and he's searching for the clue to the sensation among chaotic photos.

"So I guess you think this picture belongs on a thank you card." Pulling out the most gruesome shot of how a blunt object can rearrange brain matter, Gibbs waits as Coles tilts his head, taking in his alleged handiwork.

A sandpaper throat is cleared and Coles, who had declined representation in the way nutcases do, expels a patient breath.

"It was heaven-sanctioned mercy on behalf of the unknowing world, I don't mind saying. As a man with the potential for fatherhood, I have to think of my pending children. And yours perhaps, if you'll permit me to presume."

Gibbs is groaning like a motor stuck in neutral. "So you spilled a man's blood for the sake of kids you don't have?"

Besides appearing to be on an extended sabbatical from soap, the suspect looks pleased to find a potential convert to his theory. Having begun the week as a twenty six year old on the cusp of naval advancement, Coles seems determined to end it as a heavily-bearded skid row inmate. He leans dirty elbows on a surface that Gibbs is littering with forensic shots of a bloodless man who did, in fact, have children to protect. The next sermon is balancing on his tongue and behind the glass waits an audience readying the virtual tomatoes.

"See, here's the thing…"

Standing before the mirror, Tony's reflection cringes as the dissertation seeks traction. "Nothing good ever starts with 'here's the thing.'"

"Nothing good ever ends with Gibbs wearing that face," McGee notes while sipping still-boiling coffee. Pity for murderers isn't a gift he wastes lightly, but McGee has a nagging concern for the safety of the man's windpipe.

Gibbs' reputation doesn't need the additional fodder.

Having exhausted his first opportunity to impress his observer, Coles is expounding for the second time, from the agonizing beginning, a line of reasoning that follows a peculiar, doodle-drawing outline along the page of lunacy. Certain poorly selected juries might actually believe him on the basis that it's too silly to be dishonest. It's either a fine act or the man genuinely believes that guilt is measured by a complex system of mathematical percentages. The psyche ward loves this sort.

Because according to the completely sober man, it's only a twenty-nine percent murder with eight percent vicious intent and sixty-one percent righteous accord because, and here's where the math goes a bit cactus-shaped, the victim deserved it.

Tony is adding it all up and by the tilt of his head, he's pronounced Coles guilty, stupid and possibly contagious.

Placed like a ticking package on the scales of justice, the seaman's excuse is the approximate weight of rotting bull and sinks twice as fast. The boss's face has turned to asphalt; a lethal sort of bland that freezes the warmth from McGee's coffee. The general vibe of tolerance with which Gibbs has operated for the last few months, extended primary to his team and victims, has been shoved into a box, locked, wrapped in industrial tape and mailed to a hut in Taiwan.

"But he's one hundred percent dead," Gibbs reminds him. "These aren't fractional fingerprints and his family isn't in partial mourning." A hand is slammed, bringing the rather abstract being into a startled focus. "His kids aren't a future apparition. You didn't kill him for the sake of your hypothetical descendants. You killed him because he knew what you were doing on the side."

"Only preaching the new word, dearest brother."

"Well, then I'm gonna give you a whole new venue."

There's a colony of lice squatting in Coles' beard and McGee spends the next hour scratching phantom tingles in his hair. But he's saved from self-consciousness when Tony does the same.

**…...**

The day has been defined by the scritching sounds of a ballpoint dashing across recycled paper at the speed of a caffeine buzz. It's the notation equivalent of Abby after the eighth CafPow. The twirling of the thin necklace and its still-dangling ring should offer some sort of clue but, Ziva being a ninja of a nearly prophetic designation, McGee can lean and peer and squint all he likes. No answers will be found. But when all else habitually fails, there's always her talkative partner.

Who is currently on the outs with his computer.

Tony had been the one to track Coles to the apartment above a bakery where the on-leave sailor had been making interesting friends in the wholesale creep market by providing free samples of Rohypnol. This is what his commander learned just before he'd been bludgeoned to death with a replica of a medieval club. The charge of resisting arrest had been added to the list and Tony, employing the traits that made the former cop an easy hire for any city with a first letter he liked, had subdued the uncooperative sailor with a force that only criminal sympathizers would question.

Ziva had made an elaborate production of not fussing over the cut above Tony's eye. And sadly, four stitches will excuse no man from the obligatory report.

Now, too many hours past sunset and finished his preliminary paperwork, Tim is trying to gauge how much longer until Ziva's inner clock strikes twelve and she yanks her increasingly frazzled partner from his desk. Because they don't have to concern themselves with the pretense of leaving separately, Ziva's reclined body declares her intention to wait for her significant other to slay the cyber dragon, the rapid writing that marked her free moments slowing down to the approximate crawl of an amnesiac constructing a like/dislike list.

The execution of Tony's report is destined to be an intense labor for which McGee will take none of the blame and all of the amusement. As the man's brow knits in confusion yet again, Ziva ends the vigil and spirits herself and her little notebook to some remote corner.

"I'm all for organization," McGee whispers, "but why has Ziva been walking around with a note pad all day?"

"Writing down names," Tony mumbles in the distracted tone of a man trying to reacquaint himself with a wayward keyboard. The letters, he clearly seems to think, have been shuffled since they last met over a steamy murder report.

And in the interest of normalcy, they have.

McGee's watching the hunt and peck routine tumble into a search and destroy mission, carefully cutting his gaze toward the irritated man in the way of people with dangerous knowledge of recent misfortune. Anchoring his head down over his own completed report, McGee uses one part of his brain to shade in the outlines of his fictional villain while the rest returns to the topic.

"Writing names because she's another year closer to dementia and can't remember them?"

The huff isn't aimed at Tim solely because ignorance protects perpetrators. Pushing up the sleeves on his gray henley shirt, Tony appears to be settling in for exhaustive combat. There have been, in McGee's estimation, less suits lately. The rebirth of normalcy has produced a more casual dress code reminiscent of the old days. But a knight without armor is no less a knight, a line in McGee's new edition.

"She's trying them out on the kitten," Tony explains after significant lip-gnawing. "And when did M migrate to the upper right?"

"Always been there, Mr. 'I'm too cool for typing class.' I guess Fluffy's out of the question."

"There is no question answered by Fluffy," Tony grouses, right hand forming a fist as the left searches in vain for the letter R, sadly a hijack victim. "He's a contrary beast."

Perfect pet for these two, McGee thinks. Tony's gaze darts up to find his paramour far enough away to chance an explanation.

"The kamikaze hairball won't come to her so she's testing every name in the book. Plus a few that have never seen print."

"And you're making reasonable recommendations, I'm sure."

"Of course. My pearls of wisdom include 'he'd look great at the pound' or 'maybe we should let his next family have the privilege of naming him.' All valid suggestions."

"Because you hate the cat?" And a tiny part of McGee wonders if Tony had been truly ready for fatherhood with empathy like this.

"The feline and I are on speaking terms. He's just not that into Ziva but you try telling her that." A few stabs at innocent letters and Tony relents, "Surprised she'd want to get close to anything so soon."

There are crickets of silence behind that statement, a gulf of hurt still perching on Tony's heart. Clearly he's not prepared for attachment. Before Tim can locate the appropriate sentiment, Tony shakes off the approaching melancholy.

"Can't fault her for it but that doesn't mean I can't find it ridiculously funny." The smile is a bit fragile but it's enough to reduce Tim's concern. "I should record it, preserve her process of elimination for future generations of cat namers."

If left to play too long, the mental image will incite rampant giggling from the butchest of men. Somehow Ziva crouched on one end of the room whispering silly names to a reluctant kitty seems rather like a dominatrix joining a convent. She's the type to simply label the clawed wonder Killer and leave it to the cat to fulfill the moniker.

"So," McGee prompts again, "she's just calling out random names until the kitten decides to make friends with her?"

"Cats are known for independence, right? If she wanted a loyal pet she shouldn't have let the Hoarder's Guide to Inbred Pests pick out the species. We could have had a Rottweiler or something."

The snort actually hurts McGee's nostrils. "Aren't you afraid of dogs?"

"Not afraid. Cautious. There's a difference."

Shrugging, McGee returns to his villain plotting while absently settling on, "Maybe it'll work, eventually."

"And maybe if I call out to the letter S enough times, it'll come to me."

McGee chokes down the snicker with a deluge of bottled water. "It's like some kind of naming ceremony wrapped in a social experiment and smothered in _girl_."

Tony's bloodshot eyes head skyward. "Do you have to make everything sound geeky?"

"Only when the words actually leave my head," McGee says. "I'm assuming that when the cat heads her way, it'll get christened with the last name she uttered, right?"

"She'll end up slapping an old man name to the poor thing. Like Horace or Egbert."

"Or Anthony." Ziva's sharp tone announces her reemergence.

Raising his eyebrows as she adds a few words to her list, Tony leans back with Redford's casualness and Dracula's leer. "Anthony is a classic. But you've been spouting things that I'm fairly sure are considered offensive in some countries."

"I am not cursing at the cat. He simply chose the wrong human to ignore. I did save him after all."

"Doesn't ignore _me_," Tony mumbles in a voice that stands ant-tall, purposely not looking up to receive the daggers she's tossing. It hadn't been violence she'd been aiming at him earlier today when they'd both decided that nature was not only calling in synchronization, but required them to heed it inside the same stall.

McGee's neck limbers for the volley. "Are you sleeping on the couch tonight, DiNozzo?"

"Only," Ziva challenges, "if I do not relegate Oscar's frat brother to the floor."

Ignoring the reassignment of his sleeping arrangements, Tony shifts his full attention to McGee, sensing an ally in the skirmish.

"Kinda hard to sleep on the couch when Bundle O' Claws already claimed it by way of systematically destroying the arms."

Pushing up phantom glasses, McShrink strokes his chin with exaggerated professional interest. The evening is a resurrection of familiarity and for a moment, McGee's sorry Abby isn't up here to partake in it.

"That sounds serious," he intones in a clipped Harvard accent. "So you feel that Ziva is more upset by the rejection of the felis catus than the ruination of the furniture?"

"My furniture," Tony corrects. "My Incanto Italian leather sofa."

"Everything that is yours is mine," Ziva reminds Tony, who finally looks at his partner. Challenge met.

"Not until we're married, Ms. David. And if your standard is true, then what's yours is mine. Including the fuzzbucket, were I so inclined."

"Are you prepared to dispute custody?" McGee poses carefully. The tones have been friendly thus far but the partners can escalate based on little more than a raised eyebrow.

"Don't have to," Tony grins. "Hardly my fault the cat who we shall not be calling Oscar warmed up to me first. But my future bride can't tone down the competitive streak with pliers and a blow torch."

Biting back her response less out of kindness and more from a lack of a defensible position, Ziva settles on a glare that, were it meant to intimidate her partner, fails. The spark lands like a meteor in the man's eyes, a dazzle of undying interest that still has the power to make the Granite Wall of Israel almost, nearly, practically blush. That the cat is not a genuine point of contention is obvious.

What is less clear is why Tony has suddenly broken off his appreciative gaze to stare at McGee like a newly discovered gray hair.

In the lampglow of a long night made tragic by as yet uncertain interference, Tony stands abruptly and stalks to McGee's desk. A strong hand reaches for the worried man's chair and Tony pushes it back a few inches, then cranes his neck to study what McGee prays is a finely polished report. But the devil roasts marshmallows on the bonfire of false hopes.

McGee's keyboard is under investigation.

"I see _your_ M didn't join the migration. And why do you have a B where I don't?"

The larger man doesn't need to lean down to be menacing but he does and McGee knows how a mouse feels between the springing of the trap and death. The nugget of cheese that is hope has been snatched away by the steel jaws of doom. Caught. Caught and trapped. Caught, trapped and guilty.

"I got one of those new edition keyboards?" Which would only work if he'd made it sound like a fact rather than a pleading suggestion.

The smile contains none of the allure Tony developed to mesmerize females. It's an expression of a judge who considers the gallows a personal hobby. Unfortunately, he's brought his own hangman.

Ziva's notepad is slammed onto the desk. "Since you purposely delayed our departure, you will finish Tony's report."

Can they _do_ that?

"I approve of the arrangement," Gibbs announces as he enters the bullpen. "You two, go sort out your creature issues and bring me a damned name in the morning. And McGee, quit playing Scrabble with federal property."

"You got it, boss."

Either the elevator doors have opened faster than McGee's vision can detect or Tony has learned the secret of passing through solid material to exact a hasty exit.

They're not rushing home to inspect the furnishings or battle for feline guardianship. But they have rushed quickly enough that McGee notices a small yellow bundle of papers left abandoned on Ziva's desk. And because he's been caught fiddling once already today, the decision to pry is incredibly easy. Once the mouse is dead, he may as well enjoy the stolen cheese. A peek leads to perplexity. In light of Tony's protests over old man labels, is Ziva really considering the names of cities as suitable options?

Oh.

Scribbled alongside Oliver, Henry and several unpronounceable Israeli names, there lives Venice, Montego and Haifa. These aren't kitten names but they could be… honeymoon destinations.

And damnit, they'll need a cat sitter.

* * *

_**Zaedah thanks you for reading!**_


	21. Chapter 21

**_Dedicated to the Real Zaedah, who ran off into that big open field of doggy heaven last night. Many thanks to my LiveJournal buddies (and you know who you are) who sent such kind well-wishes.  
_**

**_Please forgive any typos... _**

* * *

**Symbiosis**

**21**

_There is a theory about the malevolent origins of the 'other shoe' that drops…_

As the sun splashes muted red brushstrokes over the goth-inspired night, Timothy McGee's mood is a thing known only to mythical heroes. Even the chilly drizzle, which patiently waits outside for the chance to drip down his neck, will not dampen the exuberance that he carries along with a tuneless whistle. This is the feeling of victory over his typically ironic version of Irish luck. Someone has wrenched the horseshoe of his life into the correct position and the good fortune is no longer pouring out.

The miraculously early paper is not soaking up puddle water. The instant coffee does not resemble blackened lava. The combative cowlick surrenders with the first engagement of the comb.

McGee doesn't have days like this. He refuses to think there might be a reason.

So he drinks the invigorating java while browsing the comics to the soundtrack of a soft snore a room away. All that's missing is an oversized, magical sword and a clumsy subordinate to fulfill his fantasy requisite. But established sidekicks don't often get one of their own.

They tell him that he has to leave now. Dead people do, in fact, get deader while he dallies.

At the crime scene, the backyard of a rundown home that comes equipped with its own breed of super rats and a fairly damaged marine, McGee feels the taste of conquest drying to paste on his tongue. The problem with leaving home is the subsequent entrance into the real world, a place most authors pick up pens to avoid. Unless there's a computer program to create, hack into or decode, he's relegated to third fiddle in the LJG marching band. Ziva leads the color guard, Tony is the popular drum soloist and Gibbs features as the detached bandleader, picking the songs and forcing the players into synchronization. McGee's the one in the back, two steps off the count and clinging to the most emasculating instrument.

Only Christopher Walken would want more cowbell.

Tim had arrived on scene an hour ago with a dopey grin and a nippy chuckle that earned him no special love from his team, a group inoculated against cheerful mornings. Fat raindrops coat his collar, sending the occasional marathoner sprinting down his neck. It matters not. He's just too damned happy and while he can't share the reason, he can spread the result. Constantly and without forethought. But the corpse doesn't care who got laid. And neither does Gibbs, who's barking like a provoked hound at the local police force, the entirety of which appears to be present in the form of four free-ranging bodies with differing standards of civility. A first-year officer had moved the body and the duty of educating the lad on proper procedure has fallen to DiNozzo by virtue of previously owning a similar beat uniform. Tony and the red-faced, peach-fuzzed rookie gather any weapons that might fit the dent in the dead man's head. McGee is on bag-tag patrol and the smile only grows.

He envies the destination of these baggies. Will she read his ongoing pleasure in the careful script he's using? Should he perhaps pay attention to his environment?

"This is Agent McGee," the put-upon tones of Tony DiNozzo introduces from behind Tim's evidence table, which startles McGee into dropping his Sharpie in a pile of what will soon make great fertilizer. The officer leaves a greeting hand hovering that McGee cannot grasp while still bending to retrieve his marker.

Shaking his head, Tony addresses the stranger. "He's writing like a girl today so I'll leave you to discuss recipes and needlepoint." A slap on the rookie's back softens the jibe and Tony plots a trajectory to his partner.

What is he supposed to do with the body-moving scene wrecker?

"Nice to meet you." McGee leans over the plastic-covered evidence to accept the young man's still-extended hand, finding a firm but nervous grip. The unibrow is a bit distracting. "You're sticking around to process?"

"Punishment can be educational." The shrug is the sort that optimistic people give to convert the unbelieving.

The other uniforms of his squad are holding back the sizable crowd; three old ladies from the neighborhood watch, two toy poodles and a teen who'd clearly skipped school today. The badge announces this specimen of local talent as Officer Llewen, who throws a shamed look to the body that Palmer is steering to the van.

"Thought he might still be alive. Checked for obstructions. Won't sit for a week." The incomplete sentences speak of a boy already used to shorthand scene reports. "Got some good advice from Agent DiNozzo. That helped."

The overriding embarrassment slowly twists into fondness as Llewen's eyes scan the gathering to find the man who'd likely yelled to make it look good and then joked to bring the rookie through a tortuous day. So good with people when he wants to be, Tony would have made an admirable criminal. His father's son, indeed.

At present, DiNozzo is sharing a word with his partner, a woman whose hair does not appreciate the sputtering showers. The severe ponytail hangs out of the back of her regulation ball cap like a shredded rag. McGee wonders if, in a recreation of a Harlequin cover, Tony sits behind his lady love and brushed Ziva's hair out for her with slow, even strokes that lead to... stuff.

The momentary mental scene of domestic obligation is a fine reason to remain single. Except that last night adds several tons to the pro-relationship argument. Thus when Llewen is walked through the evidence collection chain of command, McGee makes room in the lecture to expound on the virtues of the NCIS laboratory.

"It's not just the million dollar equipment, of course. I mean, what's machinery without gifted hands?"

"Still machinery?" Llewen tries. "Unskilled hands can still turn'em on, right?"

Hands turning things on is so entirely not the line of debate McGee's fickle attentions need if he plans to catch a killer.

"You'd think that, wouldn't you?" McGee tsks under his breath. "I can just turn on a chain saw but I can't make a tree stump look like a bear, can I? Not without talent. And our tech has that radiating from her pigtails. She'll take this collection of partial prints, fibers and gunk and not only find our perp but tell us how he chews his Trident."

By the perplexity that has scampered over angular cheeks, the inexperienced lad is considering how gum preferences affect the propensity to murder. "So if a bad tech gets the evidence, the guy could walk?"

Llewen's looking at the morgue van again, dripping guilty beads of sweat onto an unkempt lawn. McGee's about to recant the spirit of his statement when the crestfallen officer shakes his head.

"Won't matter how skilled the tech if the evidence is screwed up by a novice, right ?"

When the self-proclaimed greenhorn slinks away like a scolded puppy, McGee clears his throat of any attempted reply and begins loading the last of the forensic boxes onto the truck. Whatever DiNozzo had done to calm the officer has been well and truly unraveled by Tim's homage to all that is magnificent about Abby.

Despite the iceberg, nothing can sink this day.

Except the hasty summons to the lab hours later when, after a cursory glance at the sparse evidence, Abby decides that it's time for a rambling discourse on the helpfulness of legible labels. A clear baggie dangles from terse fingers that might register as a weapon had the content been explosive. But it's hard to focus on legitimate precepts when those lips move so fluidly around the formation of words. The lipstick is a unique shade of red, as yesterday's collar will attest.

He'd been gnawing on that juicy bottom lip just this morning.

"I mean, what the hell is 'halfback baseball time' and why are we incorrectly mixing sports terminology? Halfbacks play football, don't they?"

Chagrin is a frequent flyer on McGee's face. "It says 'hallway baseboard slime' and there's nothing wrong with a little flare in the doldrums of goo collection."

"A debate on the appropriateness of creative lettering is as useful as Tony learning to crochet but I'm the least of your problems. When Gibbs sees the scrapbook-worthy penmanship on his official government property, you'd better pray a killer can be caught by calligraphy."

When one has been felled by the oncoming train, it's best to clear the track before it makes a second run.

"I appreciate the warning," he strives for a sultry tone and arrives at the kind of whisper that has acne, "considering the lack of any last night. Not that I'm complaining."

Floating between equipment of varying levels of sophistication, the inimitably attired government worker tosses her pigtails off her shoulder before inserting a plate beneath a microscope. McGee snaps out of a fantasy of sitting behind her, brushing out the strands, in time to notice that between her brows a line is forming, born of concentration that makes females scientists the hottest creations on earth. There's an odor of intensity that wafts through the recycled air and tickles the parts of him that he shouldn't bring into a federal building.

Sex looks like this but so does topic avoidance.

He fingers an empty baggie that his fancy handwriting announces had lately contained an unidentified hair. Approaching subjects with subtlety is a tactic best left for beings who are neither esteem-challenged nor afflicted with any degree of maleness. There's a certain grace needed to tap dance on weight-activated C4 and it doesn't come in pill form.

"It's just that waking up with you kinda worked for me. It was like old times."

The twitch at the corner of Abby's eye indicates that this will be the most awkward one-sided conversation he's ever had. But he's too accustomed to that form of communication to seal his mouth.

"I'm just saying that my door remains open."

"It was one time, McGee," Abby mumbles to the mass spec. "And we only kissed and slept, which involved actual sleeping between your raucous snores. By the splendidly rule-breaking standards of Tony and Ziva, barely counts as light mischief."

"You snore too." Because truth is difficult to shove, McGee parades the petulance.

The goggles in Abby's hand end their journey to her face and find a new home against the nearest flat surface. "Excuse me? I only breathe heavy. That's so not the same thing." The plastic eye protectors are snatched up again. "And anyway, I was having weird dreams about Scrabble. What is it about your place that makes me convolute a study in innocence into a character from World of Warcraft?"

He's trying to fathom what part of her brilliant mind would sit a death knight, priest, warlock and druid around a Scrabble board. At least two of them probably can't read. But she's looking at Tim in the arched eyebrow, pursed lip fashion that suggests she can see through his skull and pull out the more ridiculous thoughts he tends to store there.

"The kitten named Scrabble. Not the game, doofus. One unplanned night in your bedroom and I'm seeing Tony's cat rocking chain mail and a two-pawed axe." Turning thoughtful, Abby's voice loses its homicidal leaning. "I think he was trying to kill Ziva."

Jimmy Palmer, wearing scrubs that should end the night in the incinerator, dashes into the lab, out of breath and flashing quick gazes between McGee and Abby that break the sound barrier.

"You guys know Chad Barker?"

McGee knows the Easter Bunny too but it's not worth interrupting a conversation. "The security guard?" The man was too old and gnarled to be labeled a Chad.

"So he's friends with Agent Mansfield who said something to Dr. Mallard, who mentioned it to the dead marine which I overheard." Palmer halts because sensitive information deserves a dramatic pause. "Chad escorted a visitor through the back way to see Tony. They've been locked in a conference room for almost an hour."

Abby can make eye rolling look awfully suggestive. "And I care because?"

"Because according to Chad," Palmer says, "it's Jeanne Benoit."


	22. Chapter 22

_**Your patience is appreciated, as is the continued readership. How anyone can still have enthusiasm (besides me) after so many chapters is a wonder worthy of sonnets!**_

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**Symbiosis**

**22**

_Some days, the 'third wheel' is the ideal location on the crashing vehicle of life._

If the current crop of scientific television shows is seeking to prove the 'sucking oxygen from a room' fable, they need only visit the venerable halls of NCIS. Or more precisely, the bullpen where air-deprived agents are bullied into continued life and work efficiency by the force of Gibbs' glare. Certainly the lack of breathable components should have induced a pandemic of government employees flopping to the ground like caught fish.

The mental image is only slightly more pleasant than Ziva's expression.

It is in the presence of a masterly scowl, one that starts on her lips and stretches into the atmosphere like an odor, that McGee's skin shrivels. Every internal fiber that pretends to be brave screams for a quick retreat to the lab, mommy's arms or perhaps Siberia. He reasons that a room containing a worry-through-caffeination Abby is preferable to the flesh-eroding frown that Ziva aims at Tony's empty desk. People die from exposure to less intense facial expressions, don't they?

An hour after Palmer utilized the Ducky Information System to mine the nugget of an unfortunate visitor, McGee is employing faux fascination in the direction of a thrice drafted report on the cyber-siphoning tactics of the current suspect. They should be questioning the dead hacker's associates but genuine work appears to be suspended for the duration of what is undoubtedly an awkward reunion. Perhaps Gibbs senses the uselessness that shall be labeled Agent David as long as her partner is sequestered by the Frog's daughter. Or perhaps the marine is merely testing the limits of his team's capacity for silence. There may be plenty to say but those who approach the visitor's purpose with suspicion are rendered uncharacteristically speechless.

Their job is to register the monster's arrival before it gets comfy. They should have had warning, like letters written by broomstick in the sky. As McGee dares to raise his head from his keyboard, he notes that a filming of the present scene would qualify as a public service announcement to deter the fainthearted from federal employment.

Minutes, months and millennia pass this way.

The noise that awakens conversation is the responsibility of McGee's demonic stapler, a contrary contraption that has chosen the graveyard atmosphere to alternately not produce a single staple and then expel three staples at once, each facing a different and vexing direction.

"It's possessed," he offers by way of subservient apology.

"Not the only thing," Ziva grouses in a voice best left to graphic novel vixens on a twenty-pack a day diet. "What would possess him to meet with her? What possible purpose can this serve?"

Oh, McGee's tread across this dastardly landmine before, the field strewn with jealousy traps and angst-propelled bombs. The manual for navigating peril is always out of date.

"Um, maybe she's just laying the past to rest?"

Which would only be beneficial to Tony in a reopening-of-wounds sort of way. It's a disease that could infect all of them. Several years ago, discussions on the depths of Tony's lies had been forbidden without Gibbs ever voicing a word of the implied threat. Despite a professional understanding of the nature of this job, they'd all felt the prickling of betrayal.

Shared sentiment should have earned Jeanne a bit of sympathy. Instead, they're lobbing distrust at her back. That Jeanne was a government-authorized pawn who was allowed to hate Tony makes no friend of the small Israeli currently gripping the edge of the desk.

"To what end? He should have refused whatever game she's come to drag him into. She aims to hurt him. I told him this but he listens to me with the eagerness of a root canal."

If she chews her bottom lip any harder, it'll swell to Angelina Jolie proportions.

But an optimist clings to his principles. "Might not be like that. However fake it was on his side, she did care for him. I mean, they were planning…" And he'd finish that thought only after excavating his foot from his mouth.

When the boss abandons his seat, his people clamp down on independent thought. "No. This is business."

Shooting a _leave and you'll wake up dead_ look to both agents Gibbs stalks to the lab where he's destined to trade nervous notions for the terrified torrent that is Abby. It leaves the bullpen bereft of its singular calming influence, which allows Ziva's irritation to become manifest. Slamming her palm down on her desk, she swings out of her chair, selects a piece of carpet that clamors for flattening and begins a methodical pacing.

The countdown ticks off seconds in McGee's head. The deadly hand gestures will be next, followed by a sudden halt to all motion as Mossad training trounces the Americanized overreaction to stress. There will be much gnashing of teeth until the internalization proves too much and the vocalization starts. It'll be like watching a fickle volcano that hasn't finished reading its anger management book. Her logic will be laid out in a search for self-comforting agreement through intimidation and volume. It will be the most painful experience of McGee's life. Or at least his mid-morning.

But Ziva has read her own book and surprises Tim by skipping several steps to arrive at a stage he's not sure is sanctioned.

"I am being foolish, which is neither productive nor helpful to Tony."

Is this what a black hole looks like? And is that… wistfulness on her previously hell-bent face? Her features fight it but Ziva seems to be in the early throes of resignation, even managing to strangle the huff before it dives off her battered lip.

"Natural response, I suppose," McGee squeaks from a place of shock he'll need a map to leave. "Her showing up unannounced and all."

She takes his encouragement with the bizarre restraint that royalty favors during public hangings. The malicious stance is softened into a rather majestic posture.

"I can be supportive," she says to herself. "I will not judge actions and objectives that are outside my control."

Suddenly thrust into a self-help book, McGee scratches at his chin and waits for the juggernaut to at least swing the wrecking ball of sarcasm. Instead, Ziva returns to her desk, cleansing breath taken and poise secured with apparently little effort.

WTF?

The acronym is reassigned duty under the umbrella of Where's The Fury? She's wearing domestication well and for several seconds, it's almost believable. But when McGee dares a sneaking glance, he finds a hint of forced composure that compels her left eye to twitch. Trained investigator and all that.

The tail on his mental Felix clock swishes a hundred times and when Tony finally emerges, Ziva's inquiring gaze is a staple of brides everywhere, the sort that asks and threatens all at once. But Tony shakes his head once and his partner heeds the warning through the same hurriedly grappled Zen she'd used to stuff down the earlier eruption.

They're not speaking, but that usually can't stop the Niagara Falls of telepathy dialogue their eyes have patented. Until now. It's uneasy, like a party full of third wheels.

**...**

Ceilings have caved in with less provocation than a blank stare, haven't they?

This seems to be the mystery that has Abby's rapt attention as her kohl-lined eyes consider the rectangular tiles above her. Alone in the lab at the end of a pointedly uncomfortable day, the music of the sweetly raging supplies the words not typically heard in Catholic schools that provide the kind of skirt Abby's wearing today. It sneaks fabric hands across her hips but McGee funds himself too drained to envy the embrace.

She looks like he feels; the shabby caboose on the Trepidation Express.

A switch is flipped and the bully that is florescent lighting clobbers the top of her dark head. Apparently her eyes weren't ready for the intrusion because a squeal is followed by a foot stomp leading to the new bruise on his upper arm. Abby steps back from her landed punch with the damn cutest glare and maybe, just maybe he's a little bit awake now. While his brain hopes that violence cannot be frightening when wrapped in skeleton kitties, McGee's body is an advocate for safety and retreats two steps as a precaution.

Beware professionals who know ten ways to commit untraceable murder with decomposed plants and a rubber band.

"It's been hours," Abby protests with a voice just north of gravel. "I've counted the ceiling tiles using a make-believe numeric system and then plotted their chemical compositions and manufacturing processes. Plus I found three new methods of killing someone from a distance with molded foam no bigger than a standard-sized Jello square. This mini-marshmallow craving won't quit and it's your fault for keeping me waiting."

Watching her recite the results of his crime, McGee wants to detail how much worse he'd had it upstairs. The awkward hush, the darting eyes, the itch to ask and the fear of knowing. When one routinely sees the worst of humanity, nothing good comes from one's imagination filling in voided spaces.

"Sorry Abby. I couldn't get away any sooner…"

"A text wouldn't have been noticed, McGee. A smoke signal would have been faster, although a giant bonfire might be fairly noticeable to, like, the entire sighted world and Gibbs would never approve of overtly visible communication methods. Do you think Native Americans ever accidentally burned stuff down when trying to gossip?" Crafty fingers rise to push against temples. "See, waiting gave me the rambles _and_ a headache. I might have to hit you some more."

The possible pleasure of that threat has his tongue on the verge of releasing inappropriate verbage because his bed is going to be sadly lonely tonight. But they're both afflicted with the same curse and two ramblers should not attempt synchronized discourse when stressed. Only when he's able to trust two or more oft-disobedient appendages does McGee pull up a stool.

"I'm here now," he begins. "And ready for your questions, which I can't answer since I don't actually know anything."

Damn, she's plugged in the complimentary grin. "But you've surmised based on investigative instincts?"

Stoke his ego and he's a sloshing vat of goo.

"Okay, so they're in the room for an hour, tops, which felt like twelve ecosystems had time to die off. Then Tony comes out to the bullpen with the classic stiff shoulders and iron jaw of a man who won't speak to anyone until penguins learn how to de-bone their fish before eating them."

"And Ziva?"

In truth, Tim's been searching for a sufficient adjective for her sour apple expression all day.

"I, uh, think we'll settle for epically perturbed."

"Perturbed and deadly quiet or perturbed and they might have heard her at the space station?"

"Neither. She's striving for the whole 'supportive girlfriend' trick because I think she's been reading 'Relationships for Dummies.' So when Tony shook his head, she clammed up. And we've all been unable to form audible sounds ever since."

A chair is lugged from time-out and Abby falls dangerously upon it, her thigh-high stockings proving that McGee's attention span is only good for hacking and legs. Contemplative is a fine look on her but in the silence that follows, McGee twitches from the bullpen flashbacks. The way Tony looked when he'd returned; something that edged more toward worried than wounded. Seeing Jeanne had aged him five years in an hour but there was also a hardness creeping in which hinted that while hiding was a reflex with which Tony was habitually comfortable, there is work to be done. A reluctant Galahad on a mission. Business, as Gibbs had suggested.

And without his knowledge, Abby's already plotting.

"…don't you think? I mean, we're all supposed to go for drinks tomorrow, right?" The eyes have narrowed, eyeliner lending her a bruised look. "If you'd been paying attention, you'd be on one knee over my glorious plan."

"Which is?"

"Social environment, careful plying with liquor, tension loosening lips, right? We're bound to learn what evil the viper doth hatch, right?"

Any plan that involves the repeated self-assurance of 'right' is a bomb to be detonated underground. But McGee will be led by the studded collar obediently because even whipped puppies trail after their masters.


	23. Chapter 23

**After a delay caused by the Great Computer Crash of 2010, in which my entire chapter was wiped out, I now present this rewritten-from-scratch chapter. It represents one half of what I've written but the total chapter was too lengthy for anyone's eyeballs to manage. Since it's already been composed, the next update will be arriving very shortly indeed!**

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**Symbiosis**

**23**

"_At any given moment, I open my eyes and exist. And before that, during all eternity, what was there? Nothing." Ugo Betti _

When considered in the unflattering television glow of the evening news, it's not an entirely unmerited label. The balding weatherman might allude to the wet properties of rain without fear of dispute. The spry traffic girl may cite the nine car pile-up as inconveniencing without expecting a quarrel. However rare, there is such a thing as truth in this muddled world and wishing for a mute button for life cannot alter it existence.

Physical attributes become public fodder the moment a body steps out into view and daily must one's skin thicken against disparaging comments. While verbal sticks and stones leave bruises, a grown up should have sufficient shielding against the careless flinging of words. Where monarchies ignite wars over insults, proper democracies know how to suck it up.

And suck it in.

But sensibility holds no sway when the ego is trampled. And with his ego dangling from his dropped jaw, Tim McGee reserves the right to take exception with the tone in which the adjective is delivered; like a subpoena, only colder. No male possessing the functioning gear for said gender should subject themselves meekly to an uppity voice over a static-laden line speaking a word for which McGee, with several novels to his credit, can create no retort.

Doughy.

He's been reduced to the description of unbaked bread, the call letters of money and the CB handle of the Pillsbury mascot all in one go. The phone receiver is pressed to a reddening ear as though dragging out the stunned silence will wrench an apology from April's lips. A mental rundown of his workout regiment helps not at all for his middle defies the crunches and cardio he's favored. Never one to appreciate his job, she is quick to remind him of all the fast food wrappers claiming wadded space on his car floor. The whole 'crime doesn't rest while I cook' excuse fails to impress her.

The godlike pronouncement is made twenty minutes before he's expected at a bar full of prospects for her place. The gut is heaved toward his spine even as she disconnects. There will be no witty riposte, no biting note of her own imperfections, not the least of which is her job, straw-like hair and sub-frigid romantic instincts. There is only a dial tone and the realization between the bleats of a disconnected line that being dumped does, in fact, get easier with practice.

The borrowed M.I.T. shirt remains discarded on his rumpled bed. The fabric was a flag waved for the resumption of his freedom before he'd actually achieved it. It's difficult to feel tied down to a person who insisted on retaining the distance of a great aunt twice removed. April never slept here, a testament to the nothing that was their affiliation, but his bed has not been empty for her lack.

Presently there are long hairs adhering to his pillow, the result of concern turned quasi-coital. Not sex, because thus is the summation of his life, but a worthwhile cuddle that makes him feel both valued and faintly teddy bearish, a label he prefers to the one cast down tonight.

If unannounced Chinese food is the key to his door, Abby is a battering ram.

They'd settled into a two hour spree of luke-warm cardboard dining and The Simpsons before an impromptu nap; the closeness leading to a careful hiding of his obvious enjoyment thereof. Taking his capacity to smile with her, Abby had left an hour ago to prepare for a night of after-case depravity.

This can't end well.

Because he's met the couple that Abby means to cheer, has seen how unplanned detours tear little holes in their perpetually under-repair roadway. People afflicted with their disease of passion tend to respond to trouble with talons extended, ripping at old wounds, fighting like starved dragons over a roasted knight. Abby thinks, as McGee once did, that a night of club-infused bonding is an adequate bandage. Admirable as dogged optimism is, there are hazardous surges in Abby's power of positive thinking.

"I've planned it all out," she'd informed with a kiss just below his lips. Never has his chin felt so important. "Only dead people and seeing eye dogs couldn't get down and groove at this kind of place. And once the beer doth flow and we revel in merriment and such, we should be in for storytime."

Gently, he'd tried to set her sails away from the jagged rocks but her ship has plotte a course that an act of God couldn't reroute.

"I don't know, Abby. I'm not sure a reenactment of Boogie Nights is their thing right now."

She does affronted well. "If you're bringing McPartypooper 3.0 to the festivities, I'll leave you at home."

Switching off the news, McGee's sigh carries him to the closet. Dressing in a crisp polo over a tighter-than-comfortable button down, the mirror declares it a successful camouflage for what his ex has spotlighted. Corset-like jeans and new boots complete the ensemble to his personal satisfaction, which typically dwells in the bargain rack to begin with. It's a retro vibe tonight, finished with Old Spice and the promise of music and liquor. Tim is ready to belt out his favorite seventies dirge at the new place Abby scoped for them. Tonight he is not doughy.

Tonight he will rock out.

**...**

If the Spanish Inquisition had discovered the startling efficiency of sonic torture, they'd have dismantled their strappado and rack in favor of confession-by-sound. Today's persecutors wear the uniforms of the office drone and wield the weapon of a microphone in a basement bar on Grant Avenue. It's a showcase of everyday drunks and wide-eyed co-eds who genuinely believe that, had they only looked like Britney, they'd have a hit record. Sadly, the only record likely to be handed to this conglomerate of talentless sods is by the folks at Guinness for Worst Rendition of a Lady Gaga Song.

An over-tanned freshman is the fourth to attempt "Bad Romance" but the first with laryngitis.

Having nearly tumbled down the underlit concrete staircase to the main hall of the bar, McGee is currently struggling to avoid cranial contact with the table lamp hanging dangerously low on a scrawny chain. In this mothball-infested establishment, each table is gifted one large bulb screwed into replicas of oversized beer bottles, purposely left uncentered so that it swings just inches from his head. It shines directly into his eyes while the others at the table are thrown into shadows. Apparently, most of the business's wattage goes to the stage, set up beside an admittedly well-stocked bar.

The average patron age leans toward alcohol-experimenting college students and despite the light crowd, the place vibrates like a football stadium after a fumble. Abby's reason for selecting tonight's venue, according to her post-dinner, pre-nap rant, is the assurance of fun that only a karaoke club can provide. Its proximity to Tony and Ziva's new house supplies ammunition against their united decline of the offer. Miss Scuito's spectacular pout didn't hurt, either.

The dynamic duo aren't so much not speaking as working on the nuances of silence.

Tony and Ziva fill one side of the cramped booth, the latter taking in the perimeter as though anticipating an attack of ferrets. Her beau's eyes alternately dart to the butchery of a classic arrive at its blessed conclusion and the vatted malt whiskey before him. The pale gold liquid gets the majority of his focus whenever Abby's tongue takes flight, which becomes more frequent and slightly more difficult as the bar's population increases.

There are looks, some approaching apologetic and others veering toward frustrated and they volley both equally. Neither pays particular mind to the conversation Abby strikes between horrid songs. And in the most damning observation McGee has made in the first half hour, they aren't touching. Anywhere.

Through the thin haze that should not be possible in a smoke-free atmosphere, a mid-college loser sporting oil-spill hair and preppy clothes fumbles his way to the platform and McGee knows him instantly. The lad is a time warp of every stage of evolution Tim has ever undertaken, crammed into a nervous yet slightly pretentious bundle. The boy has drunk his way to confidence and for his sake, McGee holds out a skinny shard of hope that the kid dredges some latent talent from those penny loafers.

Until the song begins.

It is said that the tone deaf are a plight to the hearing world and displaying it is a plague to mankind. This is the living proof. The warbling singer is performing his own tragic composition to the ill-fitting strands of 'Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,' the dreamy quality of the original assaulted by the would-be writer's verses. The team shares a lemon-sucking expression as the Beatles' quintessential tune is turned into 'Look Into My Eyes, I'm Dying.'

Tony finds his voice first. "Did he just re-imagine Plasticine porters as 'have you seen Hoarders?'"

"Yup," McGee nods sadly. "Threw those porters right under the bus."

"It's cute," Abby insists, ever the champion of geek-dom. "It's social commentary."

Staring at her in disbelief, Tony announces too loudly, "Whatever society he's commenting on, I want no part of."

"He's brave," Abby persists. "Give him credit for trying."

"I will give credit to whoever kills him," Ziva mumbles into her barely touched beer. Several times she's brought the drink to her lips but has only managed to consume a quarter of it.

Under the table, Abby sneaks a hand onto McGee's thigh as encouragement to aid in the perpetuation of this sporadic speech. "I-I might do it," he admits because he doesn't know what else to say. "Get up and sing, I mean."

"I'll pay good money for that, McBeeGee." Tony raises his third glass and downs the drink with the urgency of a man who's being shipped to a monastery.

As if to save the audience from Tim's suggested attempt, a middle aged man parts the crowd with the odor of his enthusiasm, the microphone ripped off its stand by sausage fingers. The opening strands of "We're an American Band" stain the young gathering with confusion, the electronic notes brutally loud but no match for his raunchy vocals. There are approximately five people in attendance old enough to remember any of the lyrics and roughly two that can name the original artist. The two beers swimming through Tim's system is not a strong enough defense.

There'll be no McGee renderings of Yes tonight.

When the waitress returns with a round for their neighbors, Tony catches her eye. The sweeping gaze that the face below auburn tresses bestows on her fellow Italian is a tacky, cliched thing that McGee would very much like to experience. Just once.

"Name it, I bring it." Her voice is thickly accented in that sinful way of European models everywhere.

Ziva clears her throat as if it will clear away the barmaid's existence. "He will want a club soda, I believe."

Tony ignores his intended, which is rather like dismissing the oncoming tide at the running of the bulls. Without a hint of flirtation, Tony tilts his head and allows the evening to degenerate.

"He'll want a Bulleit Neat, thank you."

"And another round of beer," Abby squeaks as though keeping up with Tony will help him gain forgiveness later.

With a shameful swing of sculpted hips following the pointed deposit of a smoldering gaze, the waitress moves on. Noting the look on Ziva's darkening face, Tony shrugs. "It's only one."

"It is only one," Ziva acknowledges, "after the previous three."

The tension, like the universe, is ever expanding. In the face of her polite chastisement, the DiNozzo Defiance marches to the front line. Newly arrived and looking so manly that McGee is jealous, glass number four is drained with relish and Tim's throat burns just to watch it. Standing, Tony inclines his head toward Abby, who's visually stalking his every move as though the wreck can be averted by scrutiny alone. Her leg is shaking in a frighteningly epileptic manner.

Tony's grin never wavers. "Sorry kids. Liquor board's cutting me off."

The consensus mood of the building falls to half mast. Can the strangers sloshing lagers feel the plummeting temperature in the back corner or will they just assign blame to a weeping girl's attempt at Lisa Loeb's "Stay." The unfortunate man to whom the overly dramatic rendition is apparently directed is leaving as fast as Tony but while the flailing example of emotions-gone-soggy remains at her post, simpering about only hearing what she wants to, Ziva's more interested in hearing despite likely not wanting to. Her back is seen pushing through the throng toward the employee door behind the bar where Tony had disappeared.

Having been abandoned by half the table, Abby worries her lower lip, twisting the frown into something as attractive as a burnt doll. And then she's on her feet, the chosen footwear tipping her height to equal McGee's and he rises as well, only to be pinged by the overhead lamp and sending it swaying.

"It's my fault. I know Tony drinks when he's upset and I couldn't wait to use that against him. That's like one step down from serial nursing home arsonist, isn't it?"

"We can't be blamed for caring."

Granted, prying through alcohol stretches the definition of caring and following to eavesdrop lends said definition a hint of criminal mischief. But follow they do because trained investigators begin life as nosy kids. McGee knows what awaits their ears but the advertised perils of a colossal argument is no incentive to miss it.

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**To Be Continued...**


	24. Chapter 24

_**May this Thanksgiving offering of an early update be the gravy upon which your turkey drown****s.**** Or some such...**_

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**Symbiosis**

**24**

_It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it - Aristotle_

Later, some part of the brain will pinpoint this location as proof that there is a curve to the earth. Because for a time they all slid off the globe, tumbled down to the core where misfortunes are magma pressing through the hardened crust.

The crowd between McGee and the door slows his abrupt migration. No one looks to see why the emergency exit keeps opening, bleeding streetlight down to the basement but McGee earns three elbows to the ribs and one near miss with a brimming pint as he shoulders his way to the door, Abby trailing behind. Out the backdoor and up leaf-encrusted steps that lead to the street-level patio that employees must use for smoking. The stench is overpowering; stale cigarettes and too many spilled beers. An ideal spot for classified combat. From the middle of the stairway, Abby and McGee's lines of vision clear the walkway to the small cement patio, its cheap round table and cheaper plastic chairs. Heads are kept within the shelter of shadows but they can see two people choking down their combative natures in a stride for early progress.

That never lasts.

"We agreed not to dwell on this," Tony speaks what is probably their first words into the cloud-dappled moonlight. But it's the wrong thing to say because Ziva's eyes disappear beneath lowered lashes. It's possible she has stocked her eyelids with poison-tipped projectiles and McGee has an insane compulsion to yell '_duck_.'

"We also agreed to let nothing come between us. That includes any and all fixations on the past who blow in on such an obvious breeze."

"She's not a fixation and I didn't ask her to show up looking for help."

"But you will not refuse her," Ziva spits out between teeth tightly clenched.

"You can't tell me that if Rivkin had come to you..."

"He _did_ come to me and your reaction put him in his grave."

The reminder is a hook in Tony's lip, dragging him where he clearly doesn't want to go. They stand battle ready but it's clear that Ziva had stocked her barrels ahead.

Tony dodges the parry. "That was different."

"Because she means you less harm?" Heels click on the pavement as she stalks the space between them. "Someone from her father's old rule contacts her and this is not deemed a matter for the FBI? Somehow she can only turn for protection to the man who broke her heart? Convenient."

"You think she's getting something out of this?"

"You, Tony. She gets to manipulate you the way you did her. Flaunt before you what you lost. And have you not considered in all this gallantry that this could be a trap?"

"She's not plotting revenge. She's a doctor..."

"Which certainly qualifies her to explain how some traits are genetic. You're wasting sympathy on _La_ Grenouille's daughter." The volume of the observation would blow out a hearing aid. Her hand, raised for a worrisome moment, lingers in a hover. "If this was anyone else, you would be the first to see the signs."

For all that her argument has logic, something has shifted and Ziva seems to realize it too late. In the confined patio space Tony circles her with a forced casualness, the way a courting stallion might approach an insolent mare. Yet there's nothing cordial about it. It stills Ziva, makes her hyper-aware of where he is. McGee's never seen her eyes so wide.

"This isn't about my safety," he says, voice like a judge and face like an executioner. "This is about you still not trusting me."

Without a touch, the ninja is slapped and her stance falters. "I do trust you."

"Then why are we having this conversation? You actually think I'd chose her over you?" As often happens with this couple, anger abandons one to flee to the other. Tony picks up her steel, letting it drown his tone in chill. "Do you enjoy turning everything up to its boiling point?"

"Do you enjoy seeing me jealous?"

Throwing his hands up, Tony stops at the corner of the patio where the streetlamp highlights the clench of his jaw. "Jealous of what? It was a lie, Ziva. All of it."

"Was it?" Doubt is cold water on her face. "Your purpose, yes. But little else. I wasn't blind then and less so now. She gave you a glimpse of a life you did not believe existed. A pretty doctor waiting behind a picket fence in Americana normalcy."

"It was never going to happen. And it's not some dream I'm holding you to."

"I was not trained to want nor provide such a life." Ziva's voice cracks on three separate words and Tony doesn't miss it. One step closer and he chews on his lip a moment before attempting to answer..

"So you don't think we can have a good life?"

"My failure answers that."

"Your... what failure?"

In the twist of her fingers, in the drop of moisture-varnished eyes, she's begging him not to make her say the words. But he will wait until daybreak and beyond and this silence must be filled.

"I could not bear you a living child."

And it leaves Tony unable to speak, shared misery the hinge upon which they cannot hang a future. Passing cars flash headlights on the pair but it's the moments between when they fall into sporadic shadows that show them for who they are. Mourners cloaked in a false bright easily chased away by the first shard of dark.

"This time," Tony chokes out while a street race throws echoes into the distance. "That doesn't mean..."

"I am sure Miss Benoit would have managed it. You let her talk of house-buying. Did you also name the children that would fill it?"

For a moment not nearly fleeting enough for comfort, Tony's eyes flicker to the bar's outer wall behind her, fingers curling tight into his palms. Nothing about his posture denies Ziva's allegation. But just as quickly the urge for violence is flattened by remorse. He wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, turning away from his mate and favoring an empty parking lot with his focus. When he finally speaks, his voice is piped in from a different zip code.

"Shouldn't have let it go that far. I knew what I was doing right up until I forgot what I was doing."

On another planet that might have constituted an apology. And in another galaxy Ziva might have allowed the point to die.

"I know where you were last night." Ziva tosses out the sort of cataclysm that killed the dinosaurs.

Abby's blunt nails dig hard into McGee's forearm because she sees what Tim does. The fight has drained from Tony's body and he pours himself bonelessly into a patio chair of questionable sturdiness.

"I needed to be there," Tony confesses quietly. "Talking to her helped."

Leaning close, Abby whispers, "He went to see Jeanne? How is he still alive?"

Ziva appears to be contemplating the same. "And you could not talk to me?"

"So I could rush the advent of this argument? What was I thinking?" The mockery in his tone is ignored solely because Ziva has something tougher on which to chew.

"Am I so unapproachable that in the middle of the night you could only find peace with her?"

Already exasperated by this moonlit debate, Tony props his elbows on his knees and rests his chin on a fist. The night grows steadily colder while they all wait. McGee can see Abby's breath float past him and prays he's the only one to notice.

"It was where I needed to be. I'm not asking you to understand that."

"I believe my grasp of it is quite secure. You were running."

"Driving, actually. That's where I ended up and I'm not apologizing for it." Though Tony doesn't move, the already throbbing gulf widens on the asphalt beneath them. And when he starts again, it's not intended for anyone present. "Seemed like she'd been waiting for me. I didn't have to say anything but it felt like she heard it all." He drags a breath into his lungs, which returns him to ground level and his eyes find Ziva. "For an hour I was... genuinely close to her."

McGee's face slides into confusion that resembles a Billy Idol sneer without the sexiness. Wordlessly he questions his partner in crime but she only shrugs. There's a sense of mortal decay that sticks like perspiration to his skin.

Wiping a forefinger across her cheek, Ziva unearths a tone known only to abandoned brides and disappointed mothers.

"You drove hours from me without a word and now I am to understand that you would rather pour your heart out to stone than to me?"

Sucking in a breath, Abby pokes Tim's ribs. "I think we missed the off-ramp on this one."

McGee knows, as surely as the air is slowly freezing his toes together.

Despite his earlier pronouncement against apology, there lives a double scoop of contrition in Tony's eyes when he grants his fiance a rather profound gaze, like he's seeing her for the first time and feels guilty for it.

"Wasn't running off to some other woman, Zi. Didn't go drinking. Didn't engage in anything remotely self-destructive. I just drove."

"To her."

"To our _daughter_," he clarifies with something edging toward a smile surfacing. It doesn't seem appropriate but Tony is rarely bothered by such. "I thought it would hurt more, but it was good. We did the right thing, putting her name there."

"The monument," Abby whispers as though she'd forgotten its existence.

Settling limply into a nearby chair, Ziva tries to hold the iron in her face but it's slipping by degrees, the corners of her mouth downward and quivering slightly. It's a vulnerable look, like old paintings of sad maidens.

"I cannot imagine finding comfort there yet. But I should be glad that you can."

"You had a different connection to her, carrying her those months. I don't begrudge how you've dealt with it so don't resent how I deal."

In the silence that follows, McGee contemplates backing away. Thrice. But part of him has always gaped at car wrecks even after the worst is over. Besides, his better angel known as Abby hasn't exactly made a getaway either. It's like leaving a play before the curtain drops.

"When Michael returned," Ziva begins with her best indoor voice, "you begged me to listen to you. He was standing in my blind spot but you could see him clearly. I only ask that you consider where Jeanne is standing."

Tony's biting his lower lip, a physical acknowledgment that Ziva's bullet of logic has penetrated his armor. There will be bleeding but sometimes a direct hit is a saving grace.

"You don't want me involved," he summarizes the night with as much acceptance as he can muster.

"I do not want you seeking forgiveness this way."

"I'm not..." but even Tony can see the San Andreas fault running through the defense. "I just don't agree that she's out to get me."

"Perhaps not, but helping her does not set the past right. It mends nothing. It changes nothing."

"I know," Tony concedes, head bowed.

As the night grinds out the dark hours until daylight, there are less cars and more foot traffic on the street past the wall. The bar's patrons take their abused lungs out the door in a slow trickle toward whatever they call home. The team's coats are stashed inside and Abby tears herself away from the lull to fetch their abandoned belongings. McGee, left in shadows and breathlessness, feels slightly slimier without his pretty accomplice.

Ziva's hand drifts to her partner's shoulder and though he doesn't flinch, there's no particular fanfare for the resurrection of touch. Not yet, not when it sits so heavily upon his residual guilt. McGee's fairly sure the contact is more for Ziva's own benefit than Tony's. A tug on his sleeve and McGee finds Abby laden with jackets. He reaches to ease her load but she's angling her head downstairs, clearly sensing the battle winding down and fearing discovery as much as he should. But Tim feels compelled to witness the crafting of the peace treaty, take ninety-three. Abby retreats to the warmth of the bar and thus misses the ninja laying the first article of truce before the commission of two.

"This was never about me not trusting you. But Gibbs gave sound direction before Jeanne had even left the building," she reminds him carefully. "We have no shortage of capable agents. Let Vance assign someone else to deal with her stalker."

"And let it go," Tony finishes, resigned but well past fighting. "Not one of my better skills."

"I am often no better. There are trees in the woods that I do not notice," she says as though it explains the entire evening but Tony's expression mirrors the unseen witness.

"What?"

Even Mossad agents can fall prey to girlish moves, as evidenced by the absent and nearly delicate waving of Ziva's hand. "You know... the saying about being blinded by the small picture."

Tony's smile eclipses any attempt McGee has seen in recent days.

"Can't see the forest for the trees," he supplies. "And sometimes I can't see the trees for the forest."

"Then our contrasting sights compliment each other." The conclusion is presented in a matter-of-fact tone of a guidance counselor that serves as argument ender and relationship encourager and for her troubles Tony stands when she does, coming to a halt inches from her. His hands travel the length of her arms to rest at her wrists, long fingers wrapping around the small bones loosely. Not confining, but no less possessing.

"Which is why we'll have the life we want, once we bury all this ammunition."

Her grin is tired but satisfied. "We do know how to pull each other's levers, yes?"

"Push each other's buttons." Tony lets the correction fall from his lips seconds before they meet hers. The kiss is chaste as an apology from a nun but on the chance that it may escalate beyond what frigid temperatures would safely allow, McGee turns back to the employee door. And finds a rather big man barring his escape. A frighteningly large thumb is jerked over a beef slab of a shoulder and Tim barely retains his stealth as he trots down the steps.

"Anyone else up there?" The would-be wrestler asks.

"Two federal agents," McGee says in a way he hopes is impressive. "They'll be down in a minute." Or ten. Or never.

It's only later that McGee adds his thoughts on magma-like misfortunes and earth curvatures to the latest chapter of his as-yet unnamed novel, a book he's been writing in fits and starts. Philosophers of ancient days who held to the flatness of the world never considered the circular nature of mistakes which prove the roundness of the globe. It seems that old arguments never die and old wounds never heal. But if humans are indeed smarter than the average root vegetable and can learn how to dig a hole to bury animosities, perhaps certain cycles can be broken.

Never mind that the knock on his door disproves the theory of habits breaking. More Chinese, more Simpsons and no intention of leaving.

Round or flat, the earth surely moves...


	25. Chapter 25

**_Excuses for delay range from work to Christmas shopping/wrapping to cage fight with original version of this chappy. I can only hope the result is worth the bruises..._**

* * *

**Symbiosis**

**25**

_Regurgitation is the least tasteful way to reexamine the past._

It's hardly a new endeavor.

They have played at this sort of tangle before, the proverbial rooster breaking the dawn's silence to brag to the rest of the barnyard about their occasional slips into non-platonic mayhem. Past mornings have found mouths giving up the snore in favor of settling on a landscape of skin. Though more often than not, days begin with a ringing phone for a body that couldn't wait until an appropriate hour to be discovered. Like noon. Or never.

There is neither a call nor sun to intrude on this space between the dream and the hangover. Rather, McGee wakes with a snake-jaw yawn and blinks into a blackened room, a wad of hair sticking to his cheek. It will be black and he's strangely content with its present location, plastered to his skin and long seconds away from irritating him. Limbs are twisted around a sleeping woman who is delightfully devoid of clothing beneath the down comforter and snoring like a congested cat.

It's a gorgeous sound.

However loathe to separate from any part of her, Tim gives into the burgeoning itch and peels the loose strands of still pig-tailed hair from his face. He squints to read the digital faceplate on the thermostat, which seems to have gravitated toward rainforest. On a winter's night combated by his companion's reenactment of the equator, he's sweated through the t-shirt that Abby had assured him wasn't necessary. The hard-fought changes to his torso had met her approval and by last night's enthusiastic inspection, she found nothing about his mid-section that called Wonder Bread to mind. For all that it polished his ego to a blinding shine, a ghost still whispered _doughy_ in the deepening dark and Tim had shrugged into a college tee once Abby had fallen asleep.

No stomach is at its best in a reclined position.

Hanging crooked on an opposing wall, the tail on his new Felix the Cat retro clock swishes away the minutes toward four am. Awake, perspiring and abruptly eager to let Mr Gemcity play with his pal Remington, McGee weighs the options; startle Abby with the loud clanging of typewriter keys or lay in the dark, a damp heap awaiting the sun. Next to a shivering woman. With a hangover unfairly earned by ultimately few drinks. There's surprising little time for proper drunkenness when eavesdropping on dangerous federal agents in subzero temperatures. Again. He really must stop doing that.

And when the distant horns of an early traffic accident announce that the morning has opted to commence, he tells Abby so. And ever considerate to his whims, Abby immediately disagrees.

"We're only watching their backs, even if it means protecting them from each other," gripes the paragon of reason, sleepy voice sucking gravel. "Isn't that exactly what you told me?"

"I know, but who'll watch our backs when they find us out?"

With a hand drifting under the soaked shirt, Abby makes a noise that is either anticipatory or slightly repulsed. Only one won't break his heart.

"It's thirty degrees outside but you're like a catenary arch kiln under there. All beautiful and..." she swipes at his collarbone with her tongue, "salty."

Fingers trace maps on his prickled flesh and when a second hand joins the first to remove the offending article, there's no disgust. _Beautiful_, she'd said. He bets Tony was never compared to an classically designed kiln. That the specified kiln is not known for efficiency will not trouble him when her mouth moves just there. The last shred of doubt is tossed to the floor with his shirt and the morning is greeted in a most improper way.

She's clawing at his shoulders when the phone rings.

…**...**

The scene suggests that a film has been shot here and the crew had left a set piece behind.

A cabbage field, one of the most bland, inoffensive sights on earth, is sprawling off into the horizon in a vast green carpet. A tiny apartment complex loiters uninvited in one corner, slightly misshapen by age and entirely out of place. From the fogged windshield, McGee notes that the cabbage is not as green as distance inferred. This being the dead of winter, the field has the fairly trampled and decomposed look of a place planted by a disinterested farmer. The work of harvesting had been left to the wind, which had better things to do.

There were ten windows at the front of the apartment building and none on the side where McGee parked. It might have been a decent residence once, square and formidable in its prime. One of those sights that probably claimed George Washington had slept there on his way somewhere or other. Hard to say whether the rotting vegetables or the decaying facade is the greater eyesore.

Exiting the womb of vehicular warmth, the snap of cold awaits his freshly shaved and thoroughly kissed face.

And he knows why they're staring.

Gibbs is many things, discreet being chief among the redeeming qualities buried under gruffness and his eyes betray none of the knowledge that has surely been passed like the flu prior to McGee's arrival. DiNozzo, who only unearths discretion when undercover, has forged a career of broadcasting the interesting tidbits of his teammates' lives. Because gossip unused is payback wasted.

McGee preempts the coming snide with, "Like you can talk," and brushes past the beaming agent.

Last night, Tim wouldn't have bet a burnt tater tot that normalcy could be achieved so soon after the averted disaster but DiNozzo looks so chipper in his ill-gotten gain that Tim can see the juvenile prankster Tony had been seeping from the evolving package currently snapping photos of rather untoward death. As glad as he should be to witness the relaxed set in the man's shoulders and the easy grin darting to his equally calm partner, McGee would prefer not to be the source of merriment for the team. Again.

If only she hadn't answered his phone.

Five minutes after Tony had called to inform of a dead aerographer's mate, the redness blooming like bruises on McGee's cheeks had rivaled the plum-shaded sunrise. Even the woman bent naked at her overnight bag couldn't sweep the panic from his coffee-hyper mind. Abby's fount of wisdom had been summed up thus;

"Just tell them our phones got switched at the bar."

If genetics hadn't stamped him with the promise of male pattern baldness, he'd have torn chunks from his scalp.

"Do you know why I don't do undercover? Because I lie like a five year old with a handful of crumbs."

By the glaze in her eyes, she'd stopped to ponder the McChibi image. "Okay, so we jump on the 'so what' trail the wonder twins already carved out. The way they attack things, I'm sure they left a wide enough path."

"I'd rather not take after them, thanks. There'd be a whole hemisphere of strange ground to cover and none of it rhymes with safe."

Geeks don't generally make arguments look sexy. Besides, their path should be shut down for maintenance at least once an hour. Tim wouldn't trust himself to prune the trail,let along forge his own version thereof.

"I'm not Jedi material, Abby. I'm more the the guy who fixes the broken lightsaber between fights."

"Can you not use Star Wars metaphors to put yourself down?" She had cradled his face, fingers cold against what little shrubbery the night is able to grow. "Don't worry, McChicken. I'll go wookie on any naysayers. Besides, it's not like we're getting engaged and having babies or anything."

That comment replayed in his head all the way to the scene.

Stomping his feet against the frosted chill, McGee approaches the dead woman and feels a twisted kinship. In times past, Gibbs seemed to view a relationship between Tim and Abby as a folly best left to fizzle out in its own inevitable time. They were the Mentos in Coke experiment, a sparkling thing of brief indulgence. But now, with his top agents playing tug of war with domesticity, another romance may be less tolerated. Forbearance isn't an advertised Gibbs trait for a reason.

Thus it might be best not to bring notice to the deep bite mark peeking from beneath Ziva's upturned collar. Appearing no worse for the hard-liquor wear, Tony crouches to snap shots of the victim's neck. A circlet of faintly raw skin suggests that she might have had a very frisky night prior to having a very bad one.

"She looks like that insurance girl, only not as intriguing," Tony observers. "You know, with the bullet-proof hair and tight white dress?"

"Do you have to vocalize every thought in your head?" Tim asks.

"You were thinking it too."

Busted. "Totally. That dress is killer."

A moment ago the corpse's appearance was immaterial and now all McGee can see is Flo the Progressive girl who, while pretty in an old-fashioned maven sort of way, ranks relatively low on McGee's list of provocative women. Because he's met DiNozzo, Tim recognizes that the agent is now picturing Ziva in that form fitting white dress, which is inexcusable on the job. And contagious because now Tim's envisioning Abby in said attire, all sunshine and exuberance about ensuring low rates for the masses. And bent over a desk, where there's stockinged calf, then bare thigh, then...

This line of thought has the apple-faced agent lowering his notebook to below-belt level and backing away casually.

"What do we know?" Gibbs trumpets over the din of rush hour's first gleaming.

Ziva holds up a dainty pink wallet. "Hildegard O'Connell. Thirty-six. Residence listed as Denton, Maryland. Served on the Eisenhower, which I believe returned from the Middle East in July."

"Ethnically diverse name," Tony notes. "Navy weather girl left in the elements with a noose ring on her neck and her hair hasn't moved."

It's wrong to speak ill of the dead, Grandma used to say right after raining down insults on her good-for-nothing, welfare-hogging brother, God rest his soul. The body before him appears to have used a hairspray technique to fend off errant enemy fire. The helmet-hair look is born no better with the ashen gray pallor than it likely was in life. The slight flip at the shoulder-length ends is retro fifties, the soiled pantsuit is ultra-conservative and the one remaining shoe is a pump so sensible, it must have its own savings account.

"Looks like she was dressed for an interview."

McGee circles the body, which had been shoved inside the small tool shed behind the apartment. A hawk-nosed janitor had called in the find after thoughtfully dragging her out of his workspace. The local force pegged her for navy by the laminated pass clipped to her lapel. Pentagon-authorized but left in the cabbage-soaked shadow of a residence not her own.

The custodian has been hovering, eying the victim as one would a wandering teen holding a spray can. Beneath the three layers of mismatched jackets, an elderly frame defies the wind by letting his liver-spotted bald head face the freeze without a hat.

"I seen stuff in my day," he says. "Never had a dead'um blocking my rake. Course, I hear ol' Gus found three skinned cats in there once, but that was 'fore my time."

Only God and rope existed before this fossil's day, McGee scoffs. The sailor's wallet had been suspiciously empty, he'd heard and no doubt the old gentleman and his four teeth would dine luxuriantly on the local McDonald's tonight at Hildegard's expense. As Gibbs gently takes the man by the arm to lead him away, Tony turns over the woman's hand to expose a similar set of red marks on her wrists.

"There's something under here."

With a few quick bursts of flash to document the pre-extraction location, Tony reaches gloved fingers into the vic's sleeve to retrieve a crumpled beige rectangle and hands it to the freshly returned Gibbs.

The boss tilts his head as the card is examined. "Not the usual line of work for an off-duty crewman."

A crunching of dried leaves behind the gathering announces the arrival of Ducky's van, Palmer expertly sliding the large vehicle between the shed and the front line of future fertilizer. Gibbs angles his frowning mouth toward the newcomers.

"Took the scenic route, Duck?"

"Preserving our transport from committing vehicular homicide, I fear. It seems that a vast percent of the city chose to turn up at a store closing, minding none of the clearly marked crosswalks. Our bumper almost claimed three pedestrians in mid-town trying to get here. Do you know, it looked rather like a wildebeest stampede, five hundred bodies racing toward absolutely nothing at sixty-five miles per hours while our African guide tried to save our jeep from the throttling. Why, I nearly lost my best safari hat on that excursion."

Though his toes have fought the battle for feeling and lost, he can still muster a smile at the older man in a fishing hat who manages to bring rich foreign soil with him everywhere and never take a breath.

Gibbs has no particular default smile. "Tell me why a navy officer carries a card for an escort service and ends up with the greenery in her corporate finest."

Standing, Tony brushes the dirt from his pants. "The Donna Reed revival isn't a common request in D.C., except for guys who miss their moms."

"Military maternal vibe? Not my thing." McGee imagines his thing and the notebook's going nowhere.

"You're a very sheltered boy, McConvent."

And this is what slowly asphyxiating snark sounds like: a DiNozzo-ism birthed but delivered like an obligation, trailing off at the end so that the nickname arrives in a choke. The agent's attention has drifted three miles south of present. Ducky catches it too, turning to McGee who looks to the boss currently squinting against the sunlight to Tony, whose attention has tripped over Ziva. He's fixated on the movement of her fingers. Her own focus has narrowed the galaxy down to the victim's hands. That Ziva rubs absently at her own wrists sends a gaggle of suddenly self-conscious men back to work. Except her partner, who waits until her radar picks up the blip of his gaze. He gives the slightest nod, which says '_I'm here_' and '_it's okay_' all at once.

Under the scrutiny, her hands immediately plunge to her sides.

And while a body grows colder on the ground, the senior agent has to clamp down on the instinct to comfort his woman. Public coddling is not appreciated by the modern Mossad. Ziva's cleared throat is a signal and both turn back to the work at hand.

Some moments, while lost in the grind, have a way of resurfacing. McGee's not fooled by the constant returns to normal these two have perfected. Ziva spent a lifetime in Somalia today and this won't be the end of that non-discussion. Not according to the way Tony's gaze splits between the stranger who breathed her last among the stench and the woman who owns controlling interest in his universe.

Later, the dead woman is bagged and loaded into the van, having no choice but to face the holiday traffic with Jimmy and Ducky. The scene is picked clean of possible evidence, which would be an easier affair if the breeze didn't insist on refreshing their collective nasal passages with the scent of sauerkraut that has dedicated itself to rotting obnoxiously.

Silence is a tricky ball to hit and McGee tiptoes carefully to the plate once Umpire Gibbs steps away. "You know, the odor of rotting cabbage is added to natural gas so leaks can be detected."

"I'm sure our vic was up late worrying about that," Tony says. Ziva is finishing in the shed, undoubtedly aware of her observer. Gathering himself from among the four directions of concern, Tony hefts his attention to McGee with the weariness of a husband forced to carry all the luggage. "It's Mercaptan they add to natural gas, McShowOff. I read too, you know."

"Was it literature that helped you gain appreciation for Flo?"

"I appreciate her enthusiasm for discounts and the distinct cut of her garment."

When the breeze sends a potent flavor across his nose, McGee chokes back the gag reflex. Farmers who don't bring in the crop should be fined. And hung. And then made to harvest this mess.

"I have a theory about this vic. You wanna hear it?"

"No," says Tony. "What I want to hear is your intentions with my little sister."

He will not swallow in the presence of the suddenly too close and slightly towering man. There's a wall behind McGee and he only wishes it were figurative. An eternity ago, he'd been forced against one for misspeaking. Tim wants to say that they're doing nothing wrong and certainly nothing new. He wants to remind Tony that his own business is rather complex and therefore should be minded, preferably with a singular focus that leaves no time for hovering over smaller agents. But what issues from his mouth is;

"It was her idea."

"So your intention is to blame Abby? That'll go over well when you have this conversation with Gibbs."

"You're going to tell him? After I kept _your_ secrets?"

Green eyes narrow and harden. "What you knew was gained through deception, McSpy. Don't think I've forgotten."

The mail-order backbone arrives, late and woefully inadequate. But Tim's not quite ready to concede just because guilt is no kind of armor. Only doughy people fall into malleable lumps on the board.

"Shaky ground you're standing on to judge me. You're blatantly sleeping with your partner in clear violation of every regulation."

What should have been cutting only amuses Tony.

"And yet I didn't blame her when caught. Besides, I'm also engaged to my partner, which is not only a noble venture but signifies an impressive level of commitment. You should try it."

"Right. I should follow your timeline." McGee's spine receives the needed injection of iron. "Which means spending years fighting and flirting to the detriment of mortal passersby, then hiding a relationship from Gibbs and finally pretending to be engaged in order to shield the fact that you were, in fact, engaged. Did I miss anything?"

Pending matrimony has done nothing to deplete the man's storehouse of smug, cranking the gauge on McGee's blood pressure to eleven. Mischief throws a champagne glitter into Tony's eyes and his hand slaps Tim's shoulder.

"Like I said, you should try it."

"If I tried all the things you have, I'd be armless and incarcerated."

"That hurts, Probie." Straightening his tie, DiNozzo lifts a righteous chin. "But I can be magnanimous in my role as the responsible one."

"By dispensing advice without a license?"

"You scoff but you could learn from my adventurous lifestyle."

The feminine snort behind them delivers a third-party opinion. "Yes, learn not to emulate it."

Turning, Tony greets his ninja with the grace of a man with one foot in an empty bank vault. "You're right," he compromises. "There's nothing appealing about uninhibited twins on the star-lit roof of a skyscraper. I will strike it from my memory."

"That is your version of adventurous?" Having locked away this morning's haunt, Ziva's striving for the easy tease.

"No, that's my account of New Year's Eve. You're my version of adventurous."

Tony's head jolts forward and as he rubs at his skull, Gibbs barks, "And I'm your version of unemployment. This ain't a schoolyard, kids."

"I did notice the lack of monkey bars," Tony grumbles as he lugs his kit to the car, then looks at McGee. "But monkeys we have."

Tim plasters on his best grin. "I hear monkeys bite. Is Ziva up on her tetanus shots?"

The man is simply incapable of blushing, a trait McGee would donate a kidney to possess.

"Told you, McCabbage. Adventurous."


	26. Chapter 26

**Longest installment to date and hopefully a return to form. Please enjoy!**

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**Symbiosis**

**26**

_If ceilings could detect the words aimed at them, they would denounce the whole of humanity as ridiculous beings unworthy of tongues._

"You have to help her. This isn't multiple choice."

"Exactly. So why did you decide to grade my _no_ on a curve?"

"I'm not sleeping with a man who doesn't aid his friends."

"Convenient, since I don't appear to be sleeping regardless."

"Timothy McGee, put on your clothes and go."

Abby has a pale yellow sheet slung like a toga around her previously cooperative body but she may as well be enrobed by the unyielding Ark of the Covenant. Untouchable to recently welcomed fingers and now entirely unreasonable. And it's barely ten pm. Even disinterested juries would convict on less.

"Do I look like Steve Irwin?" He's muttering but still feet travel down the tunnels of pant legs. Still the zipper is yanked upward. Still the frowning woman lays in resolved repose.

The Push-Timmy-Around fan club formed this morning when he'd let the website's existence slip. It had made the top of everyone's bookmark list because repeated viewings would restock the ammo. It had seemed brag-worthy at first but in the hands of professional snark snipers, his early boasting tripped over his molars in a splendid splat, replaced by a defensiveness that Tim has yet to rinse out of his mouth.

Hence the holiday handout of resigned belligerence.

But Abby takes his reluctance and wraps it indelicately around a tyrannical finger, which is now wagging in that disappointed schoolmarm way that is only appealing when he's not being required to face the snow and the unsolvable.

"Now the shoes," she instructs. "Good. Don't forget the new scarf I bought you. It's cold out there."

"Yes, I noticed." An ear-flapped hat is jammed down upon his head while he asks, "And you're not going because?"

"Because you're way better at search and rescue. All that tracker training and stuff. Like, when I lose my favorite stockings or can't find my best hoodie, my bat signal is aimed toward you and you alone."

"That's because they're usually at my house."

"See? We should rent you out. Your talents could be on display like a magic trick at a birthday party." Next she trots out the funny voices to further his mockery. "_Have you seen my keys? Why, let's ask Timmy the tracker. That bloodhound can find anything!"_

"So that's a no to going with me?"

"Are you grading my no on a curve now?" Abby pushes her spine into the mound of pillows, a Poe-worthy executioner in the form of Michelangelo's angel. "Besides, you were specifically requested so go forth and perform good works or my New Year's resolution will be to drown you in the word _no_."

"It's like talking to the ceiling," Tim grouses as the door closes on the comfort of home.

In a one-sided debate to which McGee hadn't been invited, they've apparently decided that henpecked is a good look for him. It's a safety pin to the ego only recently re-inflated. He's read the warning label on this disease and sees no treatment plan on the horizon that isn't defeated by a well-placed 'now' chased by a skin-saving 'yes dear.'

He's pretty sure this isn't how the Tiva dynasty does domestic.

The temperature is sinking toward the teens with a wind chill merrily plunging into the negative while a clear night blinks giggling stars at the human cleaning off a snow-blanketed vehicle. Particles of congealed winter tumble into his jacket sleeve, biting his flesh. There will be no return to his warm bed until the deed is done, though how to proceed is quite beyond his understanding. Lacking a thesis to study on such occurrences, McGee is left to his imagination, a perilous prospect when freezing.

He arrives without fanfare or clue.

Because by the unshoveled front step waits the woman that he traveled dangerously slippery miles to assist. An andorra juniper is being audited for content, short branches bowed by the two inches of powder and her two-handed prodding. Kneeling before the bush, she lifts the damp arms of bronze foliage to gain a better view of what lay beneath. More snow, he dares to guess but cannot find a voice to inform her.

Santa doesn't usually leave presents under dwarf shrubbery.

The cold wind has had its way with her dark brown hair, giving Ziva the fairly mauled look. Long strands have plotted a messy escape from the hasty ponytail, dampened by moisture blowing off the roof. He's not convinced that even DiNozzo could find the hair-by-snow-blower vibe enticing. From the curb, it appears that every light in the house has been switched on in defiance of environmentalists everywhere. The glare washes from every window, making up for the lack of Christmas bulbs. The rest of the neighborhood remains blindingly colorful a week after Christmas but the quiet house on the end of the drive is paid for by people who generally reside at a Navy yard.

Patting down the bush with satisfaction brokered by annoyance, Ziva stands and notes her visitor.

"Start looking," she snaps in a voice crackled by wind exposure.

While his tracking skills are well-documented, a successful search requires information. But there's nothing in her stance that opens the floor to questions. It's like asking a nun about masturbation. Fruitlessly, McGee begins a methodical perimeter scan, beginning with the left front corner of the property. Footprints mark the spots that Ziva's already tried, basement windows lending the ground a glittering light, sinking shadows into the depressions that her boots have made in the snow. It stands to reason that if the white dusting logs their progress, the prey would not be exempt. But there are no other prints around the outskirts of the house.

Her pretty face has gone rather brick-like.

Ziva has worn this expression before, though he'd only witnessed it when Salim removed the bag from her head. Much effort has gone into her hunt, visible by the repetitive tracks from the front door to the bush and back again. When he follows her inside, McGee's greeted by the same stomping tracks abandoned in melting clumps across the hardwood.

"Tony will return soon." Which is code for 'you're not moving fast enough.'

"Tell me where you've already checked."

Brown eyes are fighting not to roll. "Gibbs would instruct you to gather your own evidence, not rely on what was done before."

The retorts stick like thumbtacks to the walls of his brain. He will speak none of them. Death by glare is not only possible but scientifically documented.

"Permission to access every room?"

"Granted. We have," she checks the grandfather clock in the hall, "approximately forty minutes to produce the kitten."

By halftime, he's wondering if it's too early to hope for a Hail Mary pass and an unblocked run into an end zone. Any end zone. Preferably on another planet. Because after opening every closet and bumping his head on the awkward cellar doorway, McGee's still Scrabble-free. The only orange item he's spotted is hanging loose on the edge of a hamper. It's less a cat and more a thong.

Investigator McGee has been trained to tread respectfully but thoroughly through a victim's home, sensing personalities and motives through the environment. In the quiet two bedroom cottage he notes nothing abnormal about the location, except that it doesn't reflect his friends remotely.

The couple's version of home décor is depressing.

The team had collectively painted the walls in warm earth tones and there is, in fairness, a sparse yet adequate amount of furniture, Middle Eastern in influence. The technology throughout is expensive but relatively hidden. But the lack of hominess isn't just born of a work-driven pair. If _devoid_ is a palatable flavor, McGee can sample the tang at the back of his throat. It's empty of life. Two had been preparing to make a home for three and when one failed to join the party, all interest in ornamentation ceased.

It's unfinished, lending the place its own tangible abandonment issues.

Creeping through their private lives feels like criminal trespass, even with the consent to snoop. While they've left the decorating incomplete, a few personal items manage to relieve a portion of the sterility; a photo of a bikini-clad Ziva on Tony's nightstand, a 'toy' owned by adventurous lovers peeking from beneath her pillow, tampons in the bathroom and an inhaler Tony will never admit to using.

And on the top shelf of a closet, a baby name book that will doubtlessly contain highlighted options left unused. The invited imposition generates no cat however and while giving up approaches cowardice, Tim heads out to the living room to concede the effort.

Venturing into the room with a mental white flag waving, McGee finds Ziva with a significantly attractive rear in the air. Her face is shoved under the couch, the Italian leather bearing the scars of kitty claws and when she emerges sans feline, McGee quickly looks to the mantle. The fireplace, unlike the majority of the house, is well-used.

Downtown a bed is calling in intricate sonnets but instead of heeding the siren song, Tim's hands are shoved so far into his pockets that his fingers are losing circulation.

"Maybe he'll come back," McGee tries. "If we quit hunting him. You know, like how you always find lost things when you stop looking?"

"History shows that an escaped convict does not resurface willingly when the search is suspended."

Comfort the tense assassin who can slaughter a grown man with a broken pen? With this promising venture of death before him, McGee's as close to disliking Abby as any sane man is capable of. She's warm under his blankets and he's pacifying a trained killer who has the patience of a swatted wasp.

And where the hell is Tony, anyway? Isn't the future groom the one who'd signed on for Ziva-sitting? Surely there's some serious matrimonial duties being missed right now and McGee's never been one to step into someone else's role. Not without protective gear at any rate. From her slumped shoulders, Ziva must register the fruitlessness of continuing the search. Cats aren't the sort of creatures that come when called. It doesn't fulfill their amusement quotient to be obedient.

"I bet when Tony shows up, Scrabble won't be far behind. And we'll all laugh about how we spent the night combing the shrubbery."

The pretty face splits into a tornado of flesh, horrified and murderous all at once. He's heard of people being emphatic but has never seen the adjective take form and consume someone's face.

"He must not know I lost this..." a different word is bitten off before she spits out, "cat."

Numb hands leave pockets, freeing them up for self-strangulation. "Look, I'm sure if you just explained..."

The sofa seems to rise, greets her tumbling body and the voice she exhales is as fragile as his mother's china.

"Before, when I had to tell him," she pauses, tracking down words that would rather stay smothered. "I do not see the world in fanciful terms, but I saw the literal death of his soul. I saw that every way I had ever hurt him was nothing compared to losing his child."

She shifts on the sofa, trying to maintain a rigidity that battles with the bad posture that sadness requires. Her breath is quick now, a sign that sobs are being held back by force.

"I tire of losing important things, McGee."

And like every incompetent sympathizer, Tim pulls futility from the lint trap of his mouth. "But that wasn't your fault."

Her head falls into helpless hands, muffling several attempts to speak. Waiting, McGee notes that time hasn't taken a break and the tonight dances onward toward tomorrow. Lips finally separate from palms and she looks up at her visitor as one might a dense youth.

"I offered him a family. And then I took it from him."

Her bottomless sinkhole of failure sucks the usable air from the room and he can only pray that oxygen deprivation keeps her from finding the energy to take a swing at him for what he says next.

"Maybe you were wrong to try and replace Nehama with a cat." Damn, he'd forgotten to write his will first. "But a feline Houdini running off isn't a reflection of your mothering skills, anymore than a miscarriage."

"Supporting evidence is considered a trend and these are rarely ignored."

Funny how determined people can be to beat themselves to a pulp. It's not as though the world at large doesn't do enough of that on its own.

"This isn't a case, Ziva. You didn't plan to miscarry," Tim offers in a hush of sincerity. "If Tony was here, he'd tell you that and mean it."

The prospect should have warmed her. It doesn't. "He _would_ tell me that. Because he loves me and therefore lies of comfort are acceptable."

"You really believe that?" These two don't need house pets. They need therapy.

For a moment, she seems uncertain of her own assessment. But the calming breath that should have cemented her optimism only solidifies her doubt.

"My father once told me that no one possesses a grip tight enough to hold on to impossibility. Still, I held on so tightly to the hope of this child that perhaps I choked her into never being."

All those late-night debates with Abby might pay off, as Tim reaches into recent memory to pull out strings of logic that serve as solutions they offer to ceilings rather than their friends.

"By your definition, Tony's just as much to blame for her passing." When Ziva's eyes shift quickly to his, McGee swallows the urge to back away from the statement. "I mean, he was scared. He questioned his ability to be a good father because he was raised by housekeepers and headmasters. Those were his words. Does thinking it mean he'd be right?"

"Of course not."

"If you're guilty of losing her based on putting too much hope in her, then he's guilty too because he doubted he'd be good for her."

Falling silent, McGee stares at his bitten nails while she tosses his theory into the bowl and stirs a realization. He hopes. She is giving the floor's wood grain considerable eye contact, only the workings of her jaw indicating that more than a staring contest is taking place. After counting to sixty four in his head, he makes the attempt at Hallmark.

"Tight or otherwise," he says, "you held onto hope. I don't think hope ever killed anything."

Either she's grateful for that sentiment or is determining how fast she can load her gun. For a moment, dark brown eyes raise to meet the point just below his jugular.

"You recommend that I hope this cat into returning so that I do not have to tell Tony what happened?"

"No, I recommend that you stop being afraid to talk to him."

"I have never been afraid of Tony," she scoffs. "Besides, communication is not our problem, McGee. Certain people have written books about our excessive verbage."

The jab is ignored. Somehow, a Dr Phil voice seems appropriate here, that southern beat-down tone that insults while educating. But the night is long and he'll run out of Oprah stars before he runs out of useless platitudes.

"You talk, yes. But in tease and flirt and spite. How many heart-to-hearts can you remember?"

"We are not..." she searches for an adequate translation and fails, "mushy."

"I realize it's like applying mascara with a machete, but talking about feelings isn't just about mush. It's clearing the air before either of you suffocates."

Slapping her hands lightly on her thighs, Ziva prepares to resume command. "Perhaps, but feelings will not locate the cat. We should get back to..."

"If I was the jealous kind, they'd be serving your organs in Chinese food."

The voice achieves a timber marked by jolly menace and the body following the sound enters the room in time to witness Ziva swap white-faced panic for a crimson bloom. The couch is abandoned, the cohort forgotten. Tracking the Prozac rainbow of her expression, Tony's brow furrows but he reigns in the questions and accepts her enthusiastic embrace.

Which means he has to release the fidgeting orange puffball his arms.

The pointed face under pristine and blatantly dry fur spares a speck of notice for its seekers, savoring its victory against the feeble humans by way of licking inappropriately.

"What's wrong?" Tony asks quietly. From the uncomfortable vantage point of the sofa, Tim debates which is a better use of time; hoping she'll launch into confession or praying for invisibility.

"Nothing," Ziva says with a certainty that would derail further inquiry if anyone else had been steering the train of thought.

"Then what's with the midnight powwow?"

Obstinacy was perfected on Israeli soil. "It is only eleven and I am unfamiliar with this... powwow."

Tony's eyes coast over her head. "So why is McIndian Chief trying to mind meld with the cushions?"

"You're mixing your metaphors." Tim stands, brushing off imaginary lint from his sleeve before grabbing his coat. "We were just talking and I was just leaving."

Untangling himself from the anxious woman playing at nonchalance, Tony gestures to the door. "I'll walk you out."

Somewhere between _'I can find my own way' _and_ 'can you believe this weather,'_ McGee realizes that he can't shake his escort. From the yard, he looks back to find Ziva at the window. She's clutching the rebellious kitten in her grip while mentally pelting him with Shut Up messages.

With only a sigh as preamble, Tony tells the night, "She wanted a few hours. I gave her that." Newborn snowflakes float onto their shoulders and slide limply to the ground. "I can't ask. I don't push. Keep catching her rubbing her wrists and I'm biting my tongue hard enough to sever it."

There's nothing in the disclosure that encourages comment. Tony's not looking at him, at anything and McGee wonders if he's actually needed for any conversation today. But he can't return to Abby and say he didn't try everything. Including the Scuito Method of worm-can-opening.

"She's protecting you."

"From what?" It's not really a question. Tony knows, knows all too well. But as is Ducky's fervent belief, sometimes letting the words hit air helps.

"Has she told you everything about Somalia?"

The existence of personal black clouds is proven as one passes before Tony's face, stalls there and settles. If Ziva ever considered opening up about her experiences, Tony's current expression is enough reason not to.

"Not everything." By the industrial grit leaking into Tony's words, the admission is like chewing staples. "Sometimes nightmares wake her up and she'll talk a little. Off limits otherwise."

"Yeah, but you prefer challenges. Tested that boundary lately?"

Tony steps back as if the urge to punch his teammate will be pacified by distance. "You want to try interrogating her? I'll make sure your casket is stylish."

That frequent dream flashes to mind, the one that puts Tim's ghost on the outskirts of his own funeral. The mourners are rarely despondent enough and casket is, in fact, always gaudy

"It's just that, in the overall, from the outside, it seems like you two don't, you know." Which is about as succinct as McGee can manage beneath the glare. "I mean, it's none of my business but..."

Like an impatient valet, Tony opens the car door and waits for his charge to slump inside. "You're right," Tony says. "It's not."

The car door is closed with just enough unnecessary force to establish finality.

**…...**

From the mound of wadded blankets, which have multiplied in his absence, comes the sleepy murmur. "Did you help?"

Shucking off his coat, boots and pride, McGee forgoes clothing altogether and hovers naked beside the bed, resigned to another night spent sweating but not particularly sorry.

"Define help."

The pigtails precede the face. There is expectation of great feats that colors her tone in anticipatory triumph.

"I define it as finding an innocent, helpless creature, thus bringing harmony to an entire household and possibly mankind. All for the sake of your loving girlfriend."

Normally, hearing her address herself in a steady-relationship sort of way would set his heart to soaring. Presently the organ is plummeting. The prospect of lying, of claiming victory over lost items – dubiously labeled innocent – entices him for all of five optimistic seconds. The notion is allowed to circle his brain for a single lap before his sense tramples it. Because henpecked men speak truth. Mostly out of fear.

"Scrabble is not innocent, was never lost and will incite the best argument I'll ever miss." He slides under the covers. "I left before the cat litter hit the fan."

"You think going from _'aid our friend' _to_ 'start a domestic dispute'_ counts as helping?"

"Maybe I inspired a trend? They don't talk about the important stuff, Abbs. Let's not be like them, with the brooding silences and heavy glances and no good old-fashioned heart to hearts. Noise is good."

That last bit is meant to be suggestive but leans toward an unsexy whine. The voice needs work. Beneath the bulky weight of piled blankets his hand quests for flesh but she's not forthcoming with his well-deserved reward.

"Go to sleep, Timmy."

But he's owed at least one bit of rightness tonight and his fingers inch across her hip, which jerks away. Another centimeter and she'll be on the carpet, which doesn't seem all that unappealing.

"No" says Abby. "And that's definitely _not_ graded on a curve."

The open invitation to his own bed has thus been revoked. For all the trouble it caused, the orange pipsqueak had better practice meowing some rigorous apologies.

At least the ladies who host the GemcityWorship forum love him.

* * *

**A special thanks to all for enduring my non-speedy postings. This author appreciates the patience and also the sustained enthusiasm with which you greet each chapter.**


	27. Chapter 27

**Two updates in one week? I know... shocking! (Had to steal LittleSammy's mojo to manage it). Just a little nugget to dip in the ketchup of life.**

**Warning: written in one go. Any typos belong to the unskilled fingers that Marvis Beacon couldn't fix.**

* * *

**Symbiosis**

**27**

_Cheap disaster movies are more insightful than people realize._

"You're sure this is a good idea?"

Just having to ask the question should raise a Mother Of All Red Flags large enough to obscure half of planet earth. But because her pigtails are too tight and the lab too cluttered, the tentacles of Abby's brain have latched recklessly onto a solution to one of the many problems on today's schedule.

A solution in no way defined by sense.

Stomping about the space, music blasting and skirt tight over spiderweb leggings, Abby is the Mount Rushmore of determination. It's a treacherous climb to get to the peak of her four available expressions today; her features making impressive swings from exuberance to deviousness to something he'll call mutiny – which should be bottled – then landing on a carved disbelief at his lack of enthusiasm. Taking his elevated eyebrows as typical male confusion, Abby runs through her reasoning for the fourth time since breakfast.

"Look, our friends have rushed into a binding, contractual agreement without paying attention to the disclaimers. And I mean, huzzah to them for their embrace of the unknown. But it's up to us to bring the microscope, point them to the fine print and guide them to a state of buyer confidence that will shore up their commitment for years to come."

It's an odd state of affairs when Tony and Ziva's relationship becomes comparable to a tractor purchase. Tim's hairline gains nothing from the rubbing he's undertaking. Something about Abby playing mastermind makes his forehead itch.

"And we do that by..."

"Well, I considered shoving them in a broom closet and welding the door shut, but then I thought about that nice janitor being barred from his sanctuary." Because Abby's fiddling deftly with a urine sample, he won't be sucking on her fingers tonight. "I rejected MTAC because commandeering a tactical station might get me fired. But there's still the roof."

"So, you want to lock them umpteen stories up until they either hash it out or someone gets thrown off?"

"Do you always think safety first?" And then her fingers stall, some internal editing process taking place. "Right. We could be accomplices in homicide by swan dive. Which would be bad."

"I'm thinking sequestering federal agents until they turn on each other will look questionable on our resumes."

And they'll both be looking for new jobs if Gibbs suspects that precious evidence-processing time is being wasted on fruitless plotting. Jail cells don't accept new residents based on _'I think so,' _which is the summation of their progress.

McGee wants to close the case. Abby wants to stage an intervention.

But that's only because she doesn't have to ply her craft in the minefield that is the bullpen. The day began with cold coffee and received no significant upgrades. The morning progressed with Tony not speaking willingly to anyone and Ziva alternating between sneaking pleading glances at her partner and tossing up Hail Mary passes toward McGee. There had been a sense that she'd have slipped McGee some tongue if he could sustain a bit of idle conversation but fear of being pummeled had shriveled Tim's larynx.

Someone hacked a sailor to death last night in the storeroom of a comic book store. McGee's not missing the possibilities.

In fairness, Tony's not the violent sort. On the whole. Without provocation. But the senior agent's singular dedication to tracking down witnesses is not encouraging Tim to offer observations about the weather, last night's game or Gibbs' rigid haircut. Already, Tim's throat is raw from aimlessly clearing it so many times. At the sound of the lunch cart, McGee had bolted to what he'd presumed was a haven for refugees. And ran smack into a scheming girlfriend.

Since then, it's been a revisiting of his childhood conviction that any moment could, in fact, be a Twilight Zone episode waiting to happen.

Sensing the loss of her audience, Abby claps her hands together soundly. "Okay, change of venue."

It's an innocent set of words that sees him dragged up the stairs and into the hall just beside the bullpen. With surprising strength, Abby spins him around and into a solid surface that gives way to his pressed back. A door. A restroom door. Only when he gets himself righted can Tim verify which gender the space is intended for.

Abby's presence slaughters a bespectacled man's stream.

"Yeah," McGee whispers. "We're here why?"

"It works for them," Abby explains as Agent Daniels rushes out, zipper remaining at half-mast.

"In what capacity?" Tim grumbles, finding the echo of his voice in the tiled room rather annoying.

Her huff bounces off the walls, a static feedback of irritation. "I don't know. I don't keep surveillance equipment in here."

And really, who would want to? In truth, McGee had nurtured the impression that there was something sexy in the Restroom Rendezvous. Standing here now, surrounded by gleaming urinals and empty stalls, he can find no justification for the notion.

Whatever they do in here must eclipse the uninspired view.

But he's a loyal, patient man and will strive for the effect Abby has intended. She's strolling the narrow passage, nodding every so often as she tries to gather the vibe. It's like watching someone trying to dig emotion out of a trash can.

"Not a lot of room for a group session."

McGee briefly wonders which stall they prefer, if they even bother with such niceties.

"I don't think Gibbs would let us do an intervention in the head." Or anywhere, he wants to add. "And besides, I think the clandestine meetings work better for one-on-one confrontations. With unsafe levels of sexual tension. And a locked door."

"Then we'll just use this for educational purposes." Her pacing is making him claustrophobic, following the shadow of the sink counter and regarding the spilled soap at one corner with a critical girlish eye. "You guys really are messy pigs, you know that?"

"It's hasty work, saving the world." Just ask Daniels.

"Yeah," she concedes. "But in matters of cleanliness, it's the less sloppy criminals who don't get caught."

"Probably shouldn't let that get around. It would make hunting them down harder, assuming we were actually doing our jobs."

The attractive furrow of her brow suggests that Abby is recalculating her assessment. McGee would like to recalculate the bacteria content of the air they're breathing. And yet, much as he's loathe to admit it, there is a certain... ambiance to this forbidden place. And the part of his brain that lives somewhere south of the holster considers what engaging in taboo activities would feel like. It's fleeting, because the image of Daniels floats to the northern-most brain.

"Watching other people pee won't help us solve the Davozzo communication gap."

Worrying her lip, Abby nods. "Too right. I hate your logic, McGee. But lets not give up the energy just yet."

The only energy he can summon now is the nervous sort that says Tony could walk in here at any moment. Without or without Ziva. And then this becomes a crime scene.

"Focus. How do we get them to communicate about the baggage without them stacking said baggage like impenetrable walls around themselves." She stops directly before McGee and the raised hand connects to the back of his head. "Think, McGee."

They've been here before. Not this location, of course, but certainly this metaphorical crossroads. The getting-them-wasted thing failed since the cagey partners hold their liquor better than Team McAbby do. The individualized Dr. Phil sessions last night only earned him this particular matched set of discomfort. Maybe what they're doing wrong is trying to redirect the Colorado River by themselves. This isn't an army of one, after all.

Which is why McGee says, "Should we consider bringing in some local talent?"

Pleased to see him finally playing along, Abby rubs her palms together. "Who's on your roster?"

"Ducky."

Abby snaps her fingers, a physical Eureka. "That's it! A third party with psychological experience who no one can yell at without incurring the wrath of angels. I mean, can you imagine being upset with the interference of a sweet elderly man who has a penchant for being dead on? No job pun intended."

Her rewarding kiss is a saucy thing and he can hardly breath from the pride in his own brilliance. Maybe there _is_ something to this restroom thing. There might be a hand wandering inside her shirt and a strand of thought is given to leaning her over the sink. But some minuscule part of him is still maddeningly aware of the latent germs. And some gigantic part of him is conscious of the bulge that the newly arrived Agent Tienkin shouldn't be seeing. The young man ignores the pair and heads to the furthest stall. The sounds are not pleasant.

With a scientist's eye, Abby studies their surroundings. "It's a bit weird, don't you think?"

And with that, the space loses whatever magical properties they were trying to evoke. Some people were meant to have conversations in normal, uncrowded and sanitary places. Whatever fundamental lavatory romanticism he's lacking won't be missed.

"I mean," she continues, "it's kind of a bathroom, isn't it?"

And when Tienkin flushes, Tim shrugs. "It's not really... _us_."

Abby pushes open the door, looks both ways and then back to McGee. "Kinda makes you wonder about _them_, doesn't it?"


	28. Chapter 28

_**As usual, a holy host of thanks to all who return for this. Remember when it was just a one-shot? **_

* * *

**Symbiosis**

**28**

_Laying groundwork is admirable but one cannot plant flowers on cement._

The walls are advancing.

It's impossible to halt the forward march of a room determined to close itself around a gathering. As the rehash winds down, darkness is surely bleeding into the world. Not that autopsy has any windows, but a watch, that marvelous technology, keeps an accurate account of day hemorrhaging its precious hours. McGee's listening with partial attention as Abby runs through a presentation in dire need of an editor.

Ducky's response is expected to bankrupt the word bank.

McGee has already decided to only tune back in when the corpse offers its opinion. The rib cage is being held open by clamps, a familiar sight made no easier with repeat viewings. Lunch settles like a stampede in McGee stomach but it's less to do with the splayed body than the laser-guided glare Gibbs has been aiming at him all day. As if the boss's mystical properties have pinpointed McGee as the current source of disharmony in the bullpen and possibly the lack of usable evidence for a jury. Or Tony complained. Or Ziva confessed.

With a nudge to the shoulder Abby brings Tim back into the formaldehyde-rich moment, which coincides with the removal of a particularly hardened heart. Clogged arteries, the doctor notes with the sort of familial sympathy Abby is counting on.

"So, you think you can help, Ducks?"

The organ is slid onto the scale, logged and removed to a bin. Blood-coated gloves gesture to the man on the slab. The one that only cremation can rob of the vexed expression.

"No, I rather think it's too late for him."

"Tony and Ziva, I mean," Abby clarifies with a limitless patience reserved for her favorite coroner.

Stripping off the gloves and his playfulness, Dr. Mallard spreads the net of his gaze between the two young people. The grandfatherly smile converges on his face.

"Am I to understand that you both have forsaken your law enforcement careers to play guidance counselors? Quite a loss for the Navy."

Abby shakes her head. "We're multitasking here. It's a matter of team, Duck and if Gibbs doesn't have a rule about not letting friends steer themselves off the good road, then there's something stripey about the fabric of reality."

"Indeed." Ducky grins at her zeal. "And friends who act on fine intentions can hardly be faulted the effort. Only..."

Perched on the edge of a desk, Abby leans in further than standard office furniture can safely handle. One leg, slightly dwarfed by long use, wobbles as her upper body settles into a forty-five degree angle.

"Only?"

McGee can almost smell the ripening memories gathering in a reminiscent swirl, which will be pulled from Ducky's mind without being subsequently filtered through a word-limit device. The softly wrinkled face seems to compress, drawing up the imagery before releasing the story.

"I myself had a voracious relationship once. Oh, quite a few decade ago, you can imagine. A lovely specimen of ancient Russian elegance who warmed the coldest place I've ever lived. Spoke her peace with broken English and a wealth of passion. An art student she was, daughter to a man with no humor and several vintage firearms he made sure I knew were in working order."

Ducky pauses for a chuckling breath, brushing off the dust of an old romance. "For me, there was nothing below the constellations that wasn't wrapped up in her. Stars coveted her face and angels envied her voice."

"What happened?" Abby asks while Tim favors playing chameleon.

"The same that happens to all couples who find communication a chore. Misunderstandings. I recall a spectacular dispute at a posh restaurant over the lack of condiments. I can assure you that the true undertones of the quarrel had nothing to do with salt. A heap of a man, that maitre d' was and his delight in escorting us out bordered on perverse. At which point she and I stood on a snow-coated curb and argued about the air quality."

Slapping at McGee's elbow, Abby grins. "See, that's exactly my point."

"Ah, but not exactly mine." Ducky peels off the stained blue gown and deposits it into the nearest bio-hazard container. Apparently lectures cannot be delivered with the threat of eavesdropping germs because Dr. Mallard chews up a five minute silence while disinfecting his hands. When Ducky resumes, McGee can feel the pending derailment of Abby's train of thought.

"You see," Ducky says, "this exotic lady was beset with well-meaning friends who found nothing so priceless as their own advice. Always instructing her on how she might direct our relationship. On how, in essence, to be other than who we were and as a result, we became who we weren't. Fighters."

"But Tony and Ziva are fighters already," Abby reminds him. "That's what I'm trying to stop."

"Through well-meaning interference? Experience tells me the old adage is correct; the best advice is that which is requested, not force-fed."

Momentarily, a set of pretty lips are dominated by the puckered fish look. Huddled on her lap, Abby's hands twitch as she surmises, "So you're saying stay out of it?"

"I'm suggesting that we see the silver lining precisely because it contains a shadow. That's simply part of the spectrum."

Taking hold of the sensible statement, Abby stomps her platform heel through its spine. "But they can't do this on their own."

"From your perspective." Ducky's soothing smile comes complimentary with AARP benefits. "I'm sure those Russian friends thought the same right up until their help destroyed our relationship."

A crestfallen girlfriend looks to her support system for encouragement and when he produces the perfunctory shrug, Abby's sad puppy face takes a further slide. Not quite what she's looking for, Tim supposes when she shakes off his weak consolation and offers a wholesale hug to Ducky.

"At least you listened to me," she mumbles into his collar.

Even the extremely dead face of the sailor on the slab seems to twist into disappointment. In his defense, McGee hadn't said a word but he suspects that'll bring him more trouble than any useless drivel he might have uttered. Meanwhile, the lovefest carries on without him.

Abby's deep sigh could unstarch Ducky's bow tie. "Hard to do nothing, you know?"

"Oh, my most intrepid dear," Ducky whispers. "Minefields are to be navigated with utmost care. And theirs more than most." Detangling from her locked arms, Ducky aims a sympathetic glance to the hopeless McGee. "Which is not to say that I won't help."

**…...**

Punishment arrives under the guise of routine activity.

Not that Tim's against the car pooling ideal and certainly not because he doesn't want to spend corpse-less time with his ray of sunshine. It's just that her glittering orb of joy has sunk so far beneath the horizon that there's nothing left but to stumble blindly. The only clue to the night ahead is her request for transportation since they'd driven in together this morning. The groggy pre-coffee talk had made for a vastly more pleasant rise, to be sure. Because she's staring out a foggy window in an effort to forget that Timothy McGee exists.

A decent waste of time for both.

This close-proximity exile is the result, Tim decides upon reflection, of his failure to speak a single useful word about Abby's inherent goodness and the worthiness of her plotting. Thus he steers them toward her place with no actual invitation to follow her inside. If he were anyone else, DiNozzo for example, he'd have presumed a right and then counted on his charm to thaw the frost. But being McGee, that kind of luck can be hoped for the way a hanging man hopes for a thicker neck. Too late and with no precedence.

There's a hasty goodnight that tastes like dismissal and Abby scurries indoors, leaving Tim grousing in a car growing rapidly colder as he waits for her to change her mind.

His bed will be colder still.

**…...**

Along with a bullet to the head, the last thing Tim needs is to be locked with Tony in a confined space. Which is, in keeping with the comprehensive badness of recent days, exactly why a large hand is shoved between the closing elevator doors. Five seconds from ascending to the bullpen unaccosted, McGee shuffles into a paneled corner. Tony steps inside, lets the doors slide shut and allows the elevator to rise no more than three feet before hitting the emergency brake with more nonchalance than McGee's impending death deserves.

And breakfast reintroduces itself to Tim's throat.

When observing an experienced undercover operative, it;'s difficult to trust the expression that is presented. Sure, DiNozzo appears calm, cheerful even. But this is no promise that he's not merely securing the confidence of his prey before...

It's cloudy with a chance of strangulation.

Though he wills it, the metal at McGee's spine does not give way to a secret passage out of the stalled box. Tony's considering him with more interest than a certified geek usually warrants, head tilted curiously with gleaming eyes flashing that deceptive intelligence, the kind that solves complex cases while still maintaining the frat boy veneer.

"You didn't have anything to do with Ducky's impromptu dinner invite, did you?"

It's not important that the words are painted in polite tones. What matters is that there's only one way to escape and it involves C-4 and a trip to his maker.

"Dinner with Ducky?" The forced casualness sounds fairly convincing, not that he can hear much past his thundering pulse. "No idea. Was it... good?"

Shrugging with no particular malice, Tony leans against the railing and there's an increasing constriction around Tim's neck that suggests his tie is shrinking.

"Just came out of nowhere," Tony explains conversationally, as if people halt elevators for this kind of discourse every day. "An extremely European spread he lays out, our Duck. We were afraid a loud noise might shatter his antique china."

This is why tigers aren't gifted with verbalization. Their targets would waltz into their jaws. If he notices McGee's discomfort or the cherry-tinted ears, Tony pays no mind.

"I thought maybe you talked to him about Ziva and me."

Work. Tongue. Work. "I-I wouldn't have anything to say. I mean, what do I know?"

"The other night," Tony begins, then falls into some measure of hesitance. "We circle around the hard stuff. Ziva likes to start arguments because she knows it gets her out of any real conversation. When I saw her talking to you, I reacted badly."

"It's understandable."

"No, it's not. I should have been glad she was talking to _someone_. I kind of ran you off and I'm sorry."

And with a turn most advantageous to his lifespan, McGee trusts his legs enough to step away from the wall. One shouldn't test boundaries laid in sand but he's operating on the basis that apologies aren't typically followed by slaughter. He may as well take a stab at this bonding thing.

"S'okay. She was just so panicked about losing Scrabble and it brought up some issues."

He realizes several words from the end that Tony's wearing a perfectly photogenic confusion.

"Wait. She lost _at_ Scrabble or lost _the_ Scrabble?"

Which is why McGee should stop talking altogether. Forever. "Did I say lost? I meant misplaced. Misplaced and quickly recovered. The cat. Recovered the cat."

"I see," is all the man offers for a moment. Tony's hand, the one that once held McGee to a wall, scratches lightly through his hair. "So the issues..."

Remembering Ducky's story, McGee hooks what he hopes is the right word from his permanent pond of wrongness and throws it into space like an amateur scholar.

"Communication."

Confusion gives way to an expression steeped in subject knowledge. "Uphill battle. For both of us."

_Keep things light, Timmy my boy_. "I'm sure Ducky provided plenty of communication last night. Did he tell you the one about the drunk Sherpa guide?"

"The good doctor makes a passable shrink. Got us moving and then left us alone in his palatial bachelor pad to hash it out. He was probably in a smoking jacket watching home movies while we were trying to argue without actually yelling."

Turning to the control panel, Tony restarts the elevator seconds before the echo floats down of a fist slamming into the outer doors several feet up.

"You don't have to worry about us, McMother Hen. We're stronger than our fights."

"That's... profound."

McGee's got a long-despised membership in the Big Brother Admiration League and it's like a pencil in the eye.

"Yeah." Tony smiles, wattage building with each second. "Hallmark Ducky. Trademarked, patent pending and all rights reserved. I'll owe him a fee for repeating it."

The doors open on a Gibbs looking decidedly like an Easter Island head, hand raised at the level of his Angry Stone impersonation.

"Save the make out sessions 'til the morgue's less crowded."

A disjointed chorus of 'Sorry boss,' rings through the bullpen. Later, McGee will try a romantic gesture on his girlfriend. Later, McGee will make an overture to Tony for a guys' night out. Later, McGee will apologize to Ziva for spilling the Scrabble Fiasco.

But for now, McGee will simply enjoy the view of Tony investigating the laminated pamphlet waiting on his desk. His is a smirk that Ziva is sharing.

It's a Bahamas brochure. And all is right in the world.


	29. Chapter 29

_As we sputter on toward the conclusion of this story, I thank you once again for enduring its length, its infrequency and its emotional spin cycle._

* * *

**Symbiosis**

**29**

_Insanity starts with the first debate with inanimate objects._

Having raided the janitor's closet, McGee slaves for an OCD-fueled eternity before sitting back to breathe in the chemical traces of his labor. There's no one here to mock the fit. The neglected desk has been freed of its dusty bonds, the magnetic wand, wet wipes and disinfectant spray liberally employed. To the point of scouring sensitive nasal passages. And generating a fume cloud, which is likely how Gibbs sniffed out Tim's apparent boredom.

Loneliness breeds June Cleaver.

If the work space is a reflection of the mind, Station McGee would have qualified for homeless benefits. Too many consecutive cases, not enough organizational time. This morning's banishment of clutter had to be done, which isn't to say it wasn't a total avoidance tactic. Because Gibbs kindly noted the paperwork awaiting _someone's_ attention. Ironic, since he came into the day blessing the very stars that there'd be no one to pawn off addition work on him.

An empty bullpen is like an empty parking space. An illusion someone's always glad to steal.

What remains after his spurt of cleanliness is the brain-dissolving sorting and filing that an under-caffeinated boss believes is more important than the next mission, a DEA task force that will benefit from Tim's computer skills, if not his mastery of the swiffer.

McGee's being loaned out to play. But not until he cleans his room.

It would have been satisfying, this Suzy Homemaker rendition, if he could have stopped at corralling his own dust bunnies. Certainly the pine-scented haven, resplendent with elbow room and a reflective table surface, are marks of a righted mind ready to work. But the serenity is eroded by the piles of remnants to which Gibbs is gesturing. Pointedly and with mild malice. A conglomeration of stuff lays stacked on Tony and Ziva's desks, pending placement in cabinets. Their hasty departure promises only paper cuts and he's no longer happy for their impromptu 'bonding' trip.

Preparations for the DEA case will have to wait until he alphabetizes Ziva's carefully constructed Jenga tower and DiNozzo's fire hazard. Two hours later, when the manila folders no longer outnumber his hair follicles, McGee returns to his Pledge-sticky desk and finds it.

A tiny tangle of white. Fibrous in nature. Origin unknown.

It defies the rules of space-time, laying there like so much dandelion fluff. Leaning down to eye level, McGee digs a glare out of his costume box.

"You're not allowed to be here," Tim informs the lint under his breath.

"You gonna interrogate it, McGee?" The boss's fingers are wrapped casually around a mammoth cup of coffee, signaling the return of Mr. Hyde.

"It's an affront to all my work."

"Don't need training to dispatch such a foe." The weathered face is fighting a smile. It's not pretty.

The lint floats into a trash can and McGee turns his attention to the red file Gibbs has dropped on the desk.

"Is that the DEA debrief?" Leafing through the thin file, Tim sees what reads like a phone book. "It's just names. No other information? Locations? Surveillance?" Looking up sharply, his mouth hangs open. "I'm playing secretary again, aren't I?"

Gibbs' long-suffering sigh is a warning. "Cross-referencing possible moles isn't data entry, McGee. You leave in an hour. Don't wear a skirt."

His last thought, after kissing an encouraging Abby goodbye, is that they'd never send DiNozzo to play staffing temp at another agency. Tony would get to blow things up. McGee gets to advance his carpal tunnel.

**…...**

The tiny screen mocks him in full color.

There are numerous monitors to shuffle between, each filled with data to be sifted, confirmed and allocated to the proper agencies. There are sessions of typing that resemble some sort of finger kung fu. There are countless cups of coffee because eyes do not enjoy remaining open during an assault of scrolling tedium. There are hours to go before home.

But there are, despite the sneaking vigil, no phone messages. At all. From anyone. Logic would indicate that the world has, on the coordinated whole, forsaken technology. Either that or absence has made McGee a non-person. Abby's usually more communicative while he's away, sweet texted notes dropping from tender satellites. Certainly the wonder twins had made use of the cellular gods during their Paris case, though mostly to evoke jealousy. Evidently the couple is too busy reconciling their vast and varied differences on a sun-drowned beach to keep their friends informed of the myth that is the warmer locale.

Another five inches of powder is expected this weekend and Tim's never been so glad to not own shovel-mandating property. He can imagine curling up with Abby in matching black Snuggies, watching a marathon of Sons of Anarchy. But apparently, she's misplaced the ability to operate small phone keys.

The device launches into his hand regularly, like a cigarette attacking a half-hearter quitter. No misspelled, nearly undecipherable phrases containing words with numbers and single letter expressions invented by teenagers with ADD. No photos. Nothing.

Angry skunks don't feel this unloved.

Of course, the DEA office staff is not without merit, the scenery not as starkly functional as most drug enforcement spaces. The painting-crammed walls are indicative of successful raids, the greenery is not plastic and the ladies...

Sending pictures to Tony would be inappropriate. Right?

Swimsuit models offer fine vistas but his longtime hankering for Abby-shaped women steers Tim's interests toward black-dyed, emo-rock girls. Some people prefer females who belong in mouthwash ads, others crave ninjas. McGee will take a Marilyn Manson fan any day. Like the sample of gloom attire next to him, a study of dark eyeliner liberally stroked below a nearly shaved head. The wallet chain swings against a hip that could, in truth, use a bit more flesh. She's two bites into food avoidance but there's something about the nod of her head, a reflex to the vibrating earbuds, that reminds him of another and therefore makes the stranger friend material.

Goths and geeks; the salt and pepper theory.

"Anal girlfriend," she surmises from behind the thin partition, swiveling restlessly in her chair while the flicker of a monitor deepens the heavy make-up into bruises.

Caught, McGee shoves the phone into his blazer pocket. "Sorry?"

"Government pays for my atomic-particle focus." Mystery neighbor shakes her own phone at him. "Obsessively checking for messages is a sign of an anxious sexual partner? I know. My bond slaves stay alert for my calls, too."

"Excuse me?" Loosening his tie is salvation for his throat.

A hand tipped in purple polish is thrust across the cubicle span and McGee accepts the gesture with palms that beg for a wipe. It's ridiculous how the mechanisms of his body regress when addressed by females.

"It's Shylar and yes, that's meant to represent the feminine side of the serial killer. And since I don't do guys, you can relax, slick."

And that wraps up this portion of his day. She's a Heroes fan, which she assumes Tim will understand by the Extreme Nerd sign affixed with model glue to his forehead. Her smile, a brainy twist of naughty lips, is unfortunate for men on the whole.

"Um, I'd be Tim, which is taken from St. Timothy and not the rabbit-fearing enchanter of Monty Python."

At her raised eyebrow, McGee wonders how DiNozzo manages to make movie references sound so sexy.

"Classic, which means you're borrowed property," Shylar says. "Can't be DEA and watch things not related to faux gritty violence."

The competitive hums of their individual servers fall into synch, noticed only because there's precious little white noise. There are people standing around with expensive coffee and McGee notes that no one is talking. However well-decorated, it's a dead bullpen and he latches onto the only available life form.

"So," he gestures to one of the number crunching screens. "Are you DEA or did they kidnap you too?"

"I live here but I party elsewhere." A thumb is hooked to the stiffs loitering behind them. "If you aren't field, you can't rock. But they think Starbucks and shoulder holsters make them legit."

"I'm field. Totally field. Normally."

"And yet so totally here," Shylar observes, unconvinced as she clicks a few icons and her data sets off fireworks of streaming phone numbers.

McGee's phone is fingered while he quietly bristles. "Break from the excitement is all. A quarter of my team's doing a test run of a honeymoon."

"Mated agents? Sounds frisky."

Her smile is back and it tips the platonic scale to sibling level. Thus the nerve factor is relinquished because Tim doesn't have to impress her with his masculine leanings or tech savvy. The specimen of confidence beside him, whose real name is likely Ashley or Deb, is a drone of similar value to McGee and under no circumstances would be compelled to interest in him. It's liberating. Therefore, relax he does and the next hour is spent in comfortable small talk while they plod through encrypted databases.

The part time graphic novelist speaks of the next pressing of her latest vampiric offering and the hard work and brilliance required to be published. Determinedly silent on the matter, Tim's not about to confess his secret identity. Clark Kent would never reveal himself for less than wine, oysters and a mosh pit kiss.

As minutes press into hours, McGee finds Shylar's adorable quotient shrinking.

Unlike the friendly fire atmosphere at NCIS, this office seems replete with lovingly cultivated animosity. The blue ribbon, trophy winning kind that becomes an unfortunate hallmark of pride. While McGee tries to gather disconnected files into manageable groups, a plum-stained finger points to targets for her long-simmering scorn. Scattered among the horde of damned is a former drill sergeant whose life reads like a battle plan, a perpetually embarrassed analyst, a dangerous and aloof hottie and the office fantasy with the easy smile and shallow reputation.

Shylar makes fairly loud note of their flaws and arrogance. The McGee of old could relate, his own insecurities spawning a spite of those he viewed as superior. Judgments spring quickly from those most fearing judgment.

But the living embodiments of those stereotypes have become family. They are a daily comfort in a hazardous job that occasionally follows him home to perform acts of indecency that he wouldn't mention to his mother. Naturally, his door is always open to such events.

It's this thesis on typecasting that McGee presents over cafeteria meatballs.

"You know, sometimes those people we dislike for their assumed traits turn out to be the kind who invite you to their wedding." _And baby funerals and other moments of conflict and bliss._

A grind of premium meat is stabbed by Shylar's fork and she steers the sphere around her plate. It's 'how dare you' meets 'whatever' and a change of afternoon cubicles might be warranted.

"Nuptials," she drawls in distaste, "of the pencil-pushing and gun-polishing crowd aren't my thing. Take cred over goody bags, St. Timothy."

"But sometimes the contents surprise you."

Groaning, Shylar's eyes orbit their sockets. "Is this the play nice lecture?"

"It's the judge not lest you miss out lecture." A long pull on his ginger ale and Tim hunches his shoulders over the table. It's fatherly and uncomfortable but points do not prove themselves. "Thing is, the jock can be sensitive. The assassin can be sweet. And the coffin-loving scientist can be both super hot and uber-inventive."

"Which makes her the anal girlfriend, huh?" Discovery has wrought her smirk, an improvement of sorts.

McGee's sure the tips of his ears are flashing the bat signal.

"I'm just saying, they might push lines of code or sleep with their sidearms, but hating your coworkers without actually knowing them doesn't make your day any better."

"I feel perfectly at peace when I kill off their likeness in my inked fictions."

The hang dog mouth snaps closed on the defensive words still leaking out the corners in a squeaking sigh. After all, who was McGee to chide her for using her surroundings as a cathartic exercise for profit? A heavy portion of tender meat is stuffed in to occupy his mouth and while he chews, McGee vows to never make friends again.

Meanwhile, the phone goes unchecked. Abby's call is missed.

After three days in the company of a woman who amplifies the illustrated definition of morbid, McGee is ready to resign from government work altogether. His eyes are permanently crossed from the compiling of data, but when he makes a significant match to a cartel in Argentina, there's just enough satisfaction to make the association with Shylar – or whatever the hell her name really is – tolerable. Just.

The fourth and final day arrives to the constant vibration of his phone. Abby makes up for her prior inattentiveness by sending a textualized rendition of every moment in her day. Mentioning the loneliness during last night's awkward phone sex might have been a mistake. She hadn't wanted to distract him while under the watch of a sister agency, a very anal girlfriend thing to do. Case closed and the volume of messages indicates that Abby no longer worries that he'll secure a whipped reputation.

Between a debriefing and crafting a plan for the next task force, McGee finds himself thinking about his conversation with Shylar. The one where he invited himself to the DiNozzo-David ceremony. Having never bothered to imagine his won wedding out of consideration for bridal rights, McGee adds bullet points to his thoughts on Ziva's dress, on Tony's ring, on the house band. Settling on location and colors is a fine way to waste the two hour drive to the navy yard.

If he can get her into bed tonight, he's taking video.

The NCIS bullpen is underlit for the hour, not quite welcoming of its stray. Gibbs' coat still hang from his chair and there's a backpack at DiNozzo's desk. Lights and voices pour into the hall as Tim descends to the lab. The doors swish as he enters, taking the team in its full compliment.

"You're back," Abby, the quintessence of obvious.

"So are you," McGee notes to Ziva, who wears something that normal people might call relaxed. On her, it's a calmness no less lethal.

The man beside her hasn't shaved in a few days and the look is a rugged elegance that McGee's remaining insecurities curse. Tony's arm is slung around his fiance's waist, hand anchored to her hip and it's possessive in the right ways.

"Just got in," Tony explains. "How were the drug badges?"

"As politely uninteresting as the work," McGee admits, scratching at his head and dislodging his newest flaw; dandruff. "Not like I went on a raid."

Abby's overcompensation doesn't end with phone keys. "But they'd be lucky to have you if you did. Go on a raid, I mean. You know, busting the bad guys."

"Because I don't do that here?"

Slapping at his arm, Abby looks as cross as a swarming koala. "Bolstering your manliness here."

Beneath the fresh outdoors tan, Tony's grinning. "You met Leslie, didn't you?" At the probie's blank stare, DiNozzo clarifies, "Eighty pound, sinister cousin of Abby's evil twin. Twice removed."

"Which still makes her my cousin, too," Abby points out, pushing an errant lock out of her lipstick. "So, did you?"

"You'll find me murdered in her next comic book."

With Gibbs hovering toward a corner in solitary contemplation, the talk turns to the high-jinx of the bowling league. The reason McGee's not a senior agent becomes apparent because it takes fifteen minutes to discern what the others see no cause to mention. The perils of being tardy.

There won't be any wedding invitations.

Because Ziva's rings have already multiplied. And spawned a mate for Tony.


	30. Chapter 30

**Symbiosis**

**30**

_With a lack of gossip, the earth will still turn. But it does so without swagger._

He wakes to a thesis on lies.

True, the night had been spent in the company of a woman of constructive energies. But hours before dawn, Timothy McGee has crafted a printable dissertation in his head loosely titled 'A Narrative on Concentrated Deception as a Predictor of Future Credibility, (A Definitive Work). The stars have not yet been put to bed and he's climbing from his. Such deep concentration requires pacing. And quite possibly chocolate milk.

The trouble with a history of friendly cons is that trust becomes a scarce commodity that wavers toward mythical. Like cash on the money tree. It's a gift, one lacking it may suppose, to be skilled at lying in plain view of discerning observers. Suspects often cling to their favorite fibs with a confidence born of too much television, only to have honesty drip out as the lemon of their courage is squeezed. Yet the DiNozzo-David syndicate moves easily between lies to themselves, each other and everyone else. This latest alteration to the unscripted, ramshackle plan might be as fraudulent as the expression of a professional poker player.

The only tangible evidence of change is a set of casually matched jewelry, unassuming circlets of silver. Should rings master language, they may boast of the attractive pair they'd snagged. But to his eye, McGee finds the matrimonial standard unfitting for the action hero couple. Certainly he'd have expected neither to advertise their commitment. And while the rings do just that, their tongues are strangely silent.

It's not that they would be unwilling to provide the stellar details, but the couple has presented a united front, a billboard with unapproachable messages raised in intimidating letters. Apparently, business as usual is the preference., which is hardly comforting considering the business that Tony and Ziva have long managed to drag with them.

When trying to imagine their vows, words like _explosion_ and _combat_ seep in.

Sadly, talk of the wedding has become one of those radioactive topics that the group shuns. Not from lack of interest, as evidenced by Tim, Abby and Palmer staying late at the office to debate their versions of the ceremony, a discussion tainted by equal parts fondness, awe and ridiculousness.

But in the first two days since their return, inquiries have been answered by Tony's schoolyard bully stance and Ziva's kill-you-with-a-blade-of-grass expression. The ten year old hiding under McGee's fitted blazer recalls recess adversaries like this and it works like quick-dry cement to fuse his lips closed. Which doesn't mean he won't strain to hear the undercurrents in every typically pointless thing they say.

Four days into the work week, Tim has arrived at certain immutable conclusions. And as an elderly woman knits something of a questionable shape in the interrogation room, needles clicking in confident rhythm, McGee turns to the man beside him and postulates; "You think they're faking?"

"Did we advertise a vacancy in the conspiracy theorist department?" Gibbs' caffeine tank runneth low but his sarcasm can operate on fumes.

Watching the older man's pensive likeness in the one-way mirror, McGee sorts his argument into mental bulletpoints. There's an anorexic line between presenting valid data and spouting conjecture, especially for one whose verbal dexterity is confined to the written page. Straightening his tie, McGee presses onward, mindful that reflective surfaces tame not the potency of Gibbs' glare.

"We're talking about shady people who've used rings falsely before, proving a trend toward malicious ornamentation. I mean, they lied about being engaged by pretending to be engaged."

"If memory serves, that was in response to your unflattering pool selection." The smirk is not heartwarming. "Is this the part where I remind you not to bet against them again?"

"Just seems unlikely is all," McGee says to the back of a silvery head. "Too old-fashioned and constricting, the whole marriage thing." Scratching chewed nails at the base of his neck, Tim watches the suspect's needles sway. "It's just not _them_."

Hand on the doorknob, Gibbs halts to gesture to his next victim. "Our dead biker said 'I do' to the crocheting killer grandma in there. Marriage does happen, McGee. Just ask my bank account."

_Marriage does happen._

This is the puzzle that sees McGee through a nearly boring interview with a woman who doesn't bother to put down her green lacquered needles while recounting the enjoyment derived from bludgeoning her spouse to death. That the moment called for it is the summation of defense. The calmness of the confession coupled with the muted atmosphere in the bullpen unnerves McGee. The bickering partners speak more softly now, in either caution against insult or a new vow that harsher tones are no longer needed. It's a compromise of sound and for all the peace it promises, it is fairly annoying. Change was a thing begged for and now thoroughly hated.

He doesn't see Abby that night, instead trying to convince his Remington to write the next chapter without any input from the author. The keys, like his coworkers, remain eerily mum.

**…...**

"Marriage does happen?" Abby repeats around a mouthful of tortellini on a Saturday overrun by sobbing clouds. "That's all the wisdom he could impart? Did he get that gem from one of his divorce lawyers?"

Swallowing a hot lump of cheesy goodness, McGee can only shrug. Like Gibbs said, even the club-wielding knitter managed marriage, however briefly. Why is it so impossible to believe that Tony and Ziva might find a legal bonding pleasant?

His lover ignores his silence and the drop of tomato sauce kissing her chin. "How could they do this?"

"They've done worse than marriage, I guess."

"Without us?"

"Dear God, I hope so." What fills their category of _worse_ does not need witnessing.

Dinner is finished in a mostly comfortable hush of chewing and sipping. While she cleans the dishes, Abby tosses the crux of her day over one shoulder.

"I had Ziva pacing the lab for an hour and do you think I got a single question out? I couldn't verbalize past the look on her face, the one that says 'ruin my contentment with meaningless chatter and I'll solder you to a lamppost.' But I gotta know the where, when and how. Friends should want to talk about these things. Or at least share the photography. I mean, one camera phone shot was too hard for them?"

"Maybe they're not ready to share something so personal." It sounds good, anyway, this non-conspiracy approach Tim's using as his public front. In reality he's not ready to let go of the hoax theory.

Abby turns back to her audience, bubbles dripping from clenched hands and sending Palmolive residue onto his freshly mopped linoleum.

"Weddings aren't personal, McNora Roberts."

"In my family they're usually way too personal for the common outsider to even grasp."

The expression speaks of adoration being slowly strangled by despair. "Okay, fine. They're personal. But not private, like that shoe box in the closet that you'd never admit to your mother."

Yeah, about that...

"They are," she continues, "about gloating over the perfect dress to all eight hundred cousins. About the bride being kidnapped by the groomsmen to stall the wedding night payoff. About family and friends and that odd guy from accounts who invited himself."

"Didn't know we had an odd accountant of any gender." McGee says, mostly to hide the shock that she's given matrimony this much consideration.

"So not the point," Abby's stomping foot protests to the disruption of the table candles. "You don't exclude people from the big day. And if you do, you don't make it a Jimmy Hoffa mystery afterward."

Standing, McGee blows out the unscented mood lighting and ventures close to the damp hands still gesturing long after the mouth stopped.

"Maybe we're making too big a deal out of it."

"Why, because marriage does happen?" She sidesteps the path of his hands. "It does, but only once. Unless you're Gibbs, in which case you've got a justice of the peace on speed dial." Eyes narrow. "Do you have a JP on speed dial?"

It occurs to him, later and after tepid sex, that he doesn't know what sort of answer she'd hoped for. He might have smiled; certainly his lips formed some kind of expression. But no words had come and that could have been taken in innumerable ways. By her neutral responses to his touch, which bordered on the stiffness of a theme park automatron, it's fairly clear that it was taken badly.

And like all good friends, Palmer's no help.

"Are psychological conditions contagious?"

Sitting under a directed light that gives no mercy to his pores, McGee focuses on a faint scratch on the autopsy table and wonders what body part had been severed to make that particular indent on the hard surface. Palmer's munching on a Twizzler, apparently unconcerned with how closely the thin red strip resembles an artery.

"On the whole," a cavity-taunting Jimmy mumbles, "Weddings aren't known for their infectious pathogens, but bring me a dead bridesmaid and we'll experiment."

McGee fingers the report Gibbs sent him to retrieve. "Had a call last night from a drunken cousin. He went to Vegas, blew his 401K, met a street singer and got hitched in a rundown chapel on the Strip."

It seems so significant somehow, these unannounced life changes for which he was neither participant nor spectator. Unsubstantiated and therefore nearly fables that taste like rumor. And his life, too routine to drum up the same.

"As Ducky would see it," Palmer surmises with a patchy Scottish tinge, "the actual problem is less to do with a lack of forthcoming on their part and more an intrinsic fear of your own marital prospects."

"You're saying that no one wants to marry me?"

"Hardly, my dear boy. I'm inferring that you're afraid someone _will_."

At which point arrives the eloquent, "Huh?"

Jimmy allows the sort of look to cross his face that reminds McGee of a professor hoping to pull Einstein from Homer Simpson's body. Leaning on the empty exam table, Palmer slides out of the accent.

"Wedding fever, man. Are you worried Abby might expect a proposal?"

"Wait..." the hands go up in conjunction with Tim's blood pressure. "When did we go from casual couple to the next in line at the bridal buffet?"

"Gibbs said marriage happens, right? In Tony's case, it turns up with the abruptness of the plague. For your cousin, a Hollywood cliché was too hard to pass up. Science supports the 'happening in threes' theory."

"And that means you signed me up for ring shopping?"

Palmer's grinning now, damn that innocent, unpunchable face. "You afraid she'll say no?"

Which is when truth, that bastion of wicked timing, collides into his sensitive brain, setting fire to the wrong notions he'd been nursing all week. McGee sees himself out of autopsy and away from the smug young man, too preoccupied to experience his usual appreciation for not being wheeled out of the morgue. He barely notices his shoulder bumping into the uniform sharing the elevator. He's vaguely aware that he'd left the report downstairs. He partially catches Gibbs' complaint about the wasted trip. And it's only slightly reasonable that his hands should shake, his eyes darting to the back of Ziva's head and in its place, darker, pigtailed hair brushing the shoulders of a white lab coat. Gleaming in the sun of a tropical island. Spilling the 'I do' into the sand.

It's not the no that scares him. It's the yes.

Which is why he must know more about marriage. The circle of information is fairly limited, the price of the job seems to be a general aversion to commitment. Divorce is a popular option for the few coworkers that actually made it past the casual dating phase with limbs intact. When asked, one of the security guards, a man betrothed longer than Tim has lived, offered a snippet of advise for longevity.

"She's always right and I lock the tool shed."

Perhaps his next chapter should investigate the tool shed angle? He's got that look of writer's constipation when Abby arrives, steaming cold pizza in hand, the majority of cheese having migrated to the cover. Peeling off the congealed stickiness, Tim considers the state of his affairs and wonders how his parents would react when Abby insists on a black veil.

After the Heimlich restores his breathing, his lady fair scoops up the projectile crust that McGee will finger as the source. Forsaking further nourishment, McGee ignores the Dexter marathon Abby settles them down to and runs through scenarios in his head. This matter of marriage, of ravaging Abby nightly because a piece of paper says it's permissible in fifty states, must be settled.

Direct questioning and damn the consequences.


	31. Chapter 31

_**We have arrived. So many thanks to the followers that this story has achieved and couldn't have possibly earned. Your kindness kept it afloat.**_

* * *

**Symbiosis**

**31**

_Sometimes the confession trains makes too many stops._

Sunday used to be a day of worship capped off by mom's five-hour roast. This morning a navy chaplain gave last rites to a dying sailor, only to be clocked in the sterile corridor near a hazardous materials bin, an old copy of Our Daily Bread clutched in one hand. Not a good day to be holy, McGee decides as the sailor succumbs to terminal cancer an hour after his chaplain was discovered slightly cold and entirely undignified.

The killer had pulled off the man's trousers.

Several hours of evidence collecting pass and McGee keeps a darting eye on his colleagues. Body language is a person's visual diary and he's determined not to miss an accidental brush, an incidental head tilt. They stand, as is custom, too close for propriety and yet their manners are blatantly impeccable. It's disconcerting when mom and dad don't argue in front of the kids.

There's a shoe waiting to drop straight through the floor.

McGee's watchful for a moment to be alone with one half of the powder keg. But baggies need labeling, photos need processing and while a busy hospital conducts its affairs in life and death, McGee's trying to excavate courage from the sticky bottoms of his boots.

Midday brings an unfortunate snack choice, he'll realize belatedly that he holds an inconvenient package in hand. McGee tries not to look down and thus draw attention to the symbolism. Ziva's occasional fits of English proficiency means that one can never predict the bouts of inconvenient insight.

It doesn't help that the hungry woman wields a spork.

In a hospital cafeteria marked by scuffed walls and badly buffed flooring, Ziva considers the cold pastas while McGee waits, having secured a vending machine option because a herd of surgeons has caused a clashing scrub pile-up in the hot food line. By the stance, slightly crouched and ready to launch, Ziva is regretting her decision to eat real food. It is into this anxious hunger that McGee must begin his methodical prod for details. Gibbs and Tony are interviewing high ranking officials and thus can't interfere with the interrogation. It also means they miss her spectacular topic shedding.

"How was what?" She responds absently while her elbows extend to form coat hanger angles.

"You know. The thing."

"There are many things that warrant my opinion."

A rigid triangle of arm bones meets the lower back of a man in cheerful circus scrubs, eliciting a grunt from the recipient. That he moves doesn't surprise McGee.

"This pasta bar, for example," she says, "needs more attendants and less," her elbow is reloaded and aimed at a hip, "indecisive patrons."

The older man turns to face his attacker and promptly disintegrates. Forgiveness comes with an invitation to move ahead of him and McGee wonders yet again at the suggestive powers of a pretty face. When she returns, Ziva bears the spoils of victory on a green tray; meatless spaghetti that only manners keep her from shoveling mouthward while standing in the aisle. They find the sole abandoned table in the cafeteria, an attempt at artistic mass furnishings. It looks like a melted cough drop with legs.

The topic, already splattered at the bottom of a ravine, is hauled back limply to the surface.

"I was just wondering about the ceremony." The snack pack is fighting against the pull of his fingers, dampened by inexcusable nerves. Sympathy for the struggle with the easy-tear strip has Ziva stealing the package and freeing the contents like a mother hen.

"It was the kind of ceremony where people wed."

"Yeah, we gathered that."

"We?" Nuns confess under less scrutiny than his slip receives. "I trust Tony and I are not being discussed. Because you know _we_ would not approve of such gossip, McGee."

"Of course not," Tim rushes past the ill-flavored foot. "We just haven't seen the pictures. Or gotten the postcards. I'm sure it's just an oversight. Busy and all that."

"So, according to Abby, we needed permission. And now, you demand visual proof?"

"Not at all..."

"And what sort of pool have they constructed for this?"

When did he become the defender of uninteresting employees with too much loose change?

"No pool. Just friends who wonder aloud. W-well, not behind your backs or anything. Just curiosity, really. Which is completely harmless between friends." The vague hand gestures lend no credibility to the objection.

"Let us be honest," Ziva challenges, spork dropped, food forgotten. "Why is everyone poking at the suspicious package and then running off before it ticks? This is exactly what we did not want."

"You didn't want to tick?"

"No, we did not want to be treated differently."

The timbre of his voice climbs to the point of breaking glass. "But things _are_ different."

Leaning forward on battle-tested elbows, Ziva's eyes sandblast his. "Yes, because we expect to be taken seriously now. Mention that to your curious 'we.'"

In the end, McGee is left holding his teeth-torn nuts.

…**...**

Two days and one elusive killer later, McGee is wondering when he became so quickly suspicious of his friends. When he'd rolled out the ever-multiplying conspiracy theories to Abby that morning, she'd shaken a urine sample at him and simply said 'Occam'.

Maybe she's right, he thinks as he sits in the same cafeteria opposite DiNozzo. The simplest answer is usually correct. But simple doesn't play in the same sandbox as this complicated duo and McGee wonders just how much stealth he's gleaned by osmosis. He must be cool, subtle, indirect.

In short, he must borrow a dictator.

"Did you know that Muammar Gadhafi used to travel with an all-female bodyguard troop?"

Eying McGee's decidedly green lunch with dismay, Tony waits upon his lady fair and whatever edible offering she and her loaded elbows will bring. Distracted by hunger, Tony catches up with McGee's question eventually.

"You honestly believe such a fact would've escaped me, McRipley? Apparently they took a pledge of virginity." Tony smiles, warming to the dictator for a moment. "That's my kind of entourage."

"All you need is a small country to rule."

By the gloss in his eyes, Tony's actually picturing that. Until a second thought leaks in. "But didn't Gadhafi also say that soccer addiction leads to senility?"

"That's what happens when you don't let a tyrant buy into a franchise."

"Of course, he's got a real problem with Italians. Occupation and all that."

"I wouldn't take it personally. I think he wanted to abolish Switzerland."

Ziva emerges, opens a wrapped sandwich and plops half of it down before her husband.

"I'm taking the other half to Gibbs. What are you discussing?" She asks.

Eyes lit with the possibility of food, Tony mumbles, "the state of Libyan dictatorship."

Ziva donates an eye roll to the debate. "You could have just said football. I would have understood."

Grinning at her departing back, Tony weighs the portion of food she's deposited and, finding it lacking, sighs. "We have an agreement that pigskin discussions are forbidden in the off-season."

"So," Tim slides around a mouthful of spinach. "What's it like?"

Tony plucks the top slice off his sandwich and considers the turkey. "Lean. Ungreasy. Healthy." There's disgust in the last word.

"I mean marriage."

Tossing the bread down, Tony absorbs McGee with narrowed eyes, weighing his trust in the junior agent. Tim swallows hard, never on the better end of such inspections.

"It's scary and I say this with new respect for Gibbs' persistence in the effort. Avoid it altogether. In fact, avoid women entirely. Find a nice sheep or something because women will trap you, probie."

Lower jaw at half mast, McGee leans forward. "Really?"

"Researching annulments as we speak. There has to be an out-clause for spontaneous insanity."

"Seriously?"

Reaching across the table, DiNozzo plants a palm against McGee's skull.

"No. But you came into the question expecting that answer, which is insulting."

As if his hair isn't already thinning at an accelerated rate. Rubbing the back of his head and mentally calculating DiNozzo's long reach, Tim sits back from the table and pouts.

"Number one, ouch. And two, I wasn't fishing for any answer that included insanity pleas."

"But as usual, you doubted me."

The tease in the tone doesn't match Tony's eyes, a shade darker for the displeasure and Tim's lunch sticks in his throat. Spinach is pushed down with the remainder of his four dollar water. Tony is contemplating, but noticeably abstaining from, his sandwich, which Ziva likely prodded innumerable members of the medical community to obtain. Either the healthy content or this discussion has pilfered the man's endless appetite.

"It's just that, I don't know," Tim shrugs. "Marriage seems like such a permanent statement of thought-out intention..."

"Which I'm not capable of?"

The devolution of the moment needs only one more misstep. Tim's chances roughly translate into the odds that he'll be socked by a comet on the way home.

"I never thought that."

"No," Tony says. "You don't think it, but you'll put money on my expected infidelity."

"One time!" McGee gripes with a finger held heavenward. "If I grovel in front of witnesses, will you forget that I ever played that stupid pool?"

"If I marry the love of my life, will you forget that my little black book outweighed your car?"

Past tense duly noted. There's something about the existence of that sentence that dilutes the negativity of the universe.

"As long as you don't bequeath it to Gibbs. Marriage happens to him like static cling."

The bomb winds down to one second and Tony's laugh is disarmament. Situation saved. Zero casualties. Which doesn't mean the spared man won't ask again;

"Really, what's it like?"

Ending the pointed ignorance of the calorie-friendly food before him, Tony engages in a sizable bite of what is marketed as flesh-sliced bird, garnished with the pretense that tomatoes are singularly useful vegetables. Hospital food isn't just a lie for patients, McGee decides as he tucks back into his post-canned greenery. Still, Tony's fairly satisfied chewing declares that any port in a a storm applies to poultry. But it's less a harkening to hunger than a stall. And like an expiring parking meter, McGee sets his stare of passively persistent and waits.

"We already have the house, the feline and the..." Tony sighs away the discomfort of disclosure. "And the partnership. Of course, we also have the history, which says one of us will kill the other before the first anniversary. By comparison, a chunk of silver's not that dramatic."

"Yeah, but any changes? I mean, don't you feel different somehow?"

Feelings. Something a man's man discusses as willingly as hemorrhoids. Yet the former cop's smirk fades into an all-encompassing appreciation, the sort that teenagers reserve for Cheryl Tiegs posters. It adds a tenderness to the GQ exterior.

"Tell you how I don't feel." Tony's throat is cleared, almost emotional before he begins. "I don't feel like she's about to blow away. I don't feel like every fight's gonna put her on a plane to Israel. I don't feel it was a mistake, any of it, and I don't feel like I have anymore to prove. Not to anyone."

Clamping down on his southward expression, Tim is both touched and mortified. How does one respond to that?

"Who says guys can't articulate feelings, huh?" The hand is very nearly raised for a high-five.

"Such a girl, McMush," Tony tosses in because it's expected. It's ground they both know. But a second bite of his lunch gives him second thoughts. "I know you don't think I was built for commitment."

The protest comes quickly to mind but Tony's halting hand is faster. "It's okay. Most of the time, I'd agree. But I didn't even have her yet and I'd let her go a thousand ways. So believe it or not, pushing up the wedding was my idea."

Okay, that kind of surprise is genetically impossible to keep off one's face. Trying to rearrange the startled 'O' his mouth is making, McGee shoves his jaw back into proper alignment.

"W-why the hurry?"

Casting glances about the table, Tony speaks only slightly louder than the elevator music.

"We've been talking about trying again. You know, securing at least one of the two-point-five."

As with any moment that pulls baby Nehama back to life, McGee grows five shades paler for the lack of useful insight. Only Tony's not waiting for the Oprah treatment.

"Had a fit of traditionalism because suddenly nothing mattered as much as doing things right."

"And doing it right meant eloping?"

Acknowledging the gentle slap, Tony let his focus drift across the visual radius and all the degrees surrounding them. "I'm not the smartest guy in the room. Though for once neither are you." The grin flickers and evaporates like a zapped firefly. "But I can count. I know my parents weren't married before Fetus DiNozzo turned up."

"So you were playing against the clock?"

He grimaces at the wording, but doesn't object. "My folks got hitched because the calendar said time was running out. I don't want my kid thinking that." Tony shakes his head and whatever cobweb was being spun rips from its mooring. "Wasn't sure I wanted to be married, even after the proposal. Did that for her, really. But we were talking and packing and then I'm calling in favors to rush the license through."

"And a tropical paradise did not hurt," Ziva says as she claims a seat next to her husband.

"Not a bad backdrop, as scenery goes," Tony agrees while following her gaze to his unfinished sandwich. "Needs three layers of cheese and four pounds of bacon."

Her face says years of practice makes forbearance easier. "And then you will need your arteries hosed."

The sustained glances between them have always been rather sticky, but this sweetness is vomit-inducing. Before his eyes, two adults turn into gummy bears.

To break the impending slush, Tim says, "So why all the secrecy?"

Ziva frowns. "We announced our status upon return. Perhaps you were expecting a reality show?"

But Tony gets it, that much McGee reads in downcast eyes.

"He means the Mad Libs explanation."

His partner shifts in her seat to bestow the arched brow. "The what?"

"We left a few gaps for them to fill in," Tony explains before turning back to Tim. "Look, neither of us wanted to be known and judged as The Married Partners. Too much scrutiny, too many opinions and God knows we're a bad example to set a standard by. We actually considered not telling anyone."

"Which might have worked with everyone but Gibbs," Ziva says. "Even with our combined undercover experience, Gibbs would have taken one look at us..."

"And grilled you both from now until retirement," McGee finishes. "So you told us, but hardly a word since. I mean, who ate the pictures of the colossal occasion?"

Sliding the turkey around on his plate, Tony's jaw twitches just a fraction. "Yeah, that would be guilt."

The shift of Ziva's arm indicates that she's likely taken Tony's hand under the table. Yet another nauseating image to fertilize McGee's garden of envy.

"Our family was not present, which had not been our original plan. Showing photos would only highlight the absence of others."

Tim perks up like a dog hearing the mail truck. "But there _are_ pictures, right?"

"A few," Ziva concedes.

_Gibbs Series 3X50-B Steel Gaze, don't fail me now..._ "And?"

Drawing strength from his partner, Tony sighs. "And they might beat a video out of us."

It's not until an annoyed call from the Steel Gaze's proprietor that the lunch is broken out and Tim is a salmon swimming upstream through the next wave of hungry medical practitioners. _Ziva Model SE300 Steel Elbows _is still in production and cannot be utilized to enable forward progress. Looking back to see how the couple is faring, it is instead evident that they aren't making an effort.

Hands are entwined at their sides, mouths rather too busy to fling insults at the jostling crowd. It's a halo moment of time stoppage that shows their future for what it should be. Can be. Will be.

Symbiosis.

* * *

**Fin**


	32. Chapter 32

_This story began two years ago as a Christmas one-shot and there have been quite a few requests for an epilogue since its conclusion. And while I'd long said no, I've quite accidentally written it._

_With this posting, I also conclude my fanfiction career. It has been a lovely five years getting to know so many of you (and even visiting a few!) so I do not retire lightly. Thank you for your long-suffering patronage and may the plot bunnies be with you._

* * *

**Symbiosis**

**Epilogue**

"Have you ever been dumped on a holiday?"

Running three identification programs simultaneously, McGee shouldn't have time to voice such an insipid question. But he does, heedless of the only audience available for response. The one to his left no longer speaks in the language of conquest. Following is the momentary silence of contemplating monks broken by the snap of a stapler. A hint of Tony's profile is caught between unsteady towers of witness profiles.

Finally, after McGee has incubated three grays, comes the reply. "One cheerful Christmas morning."

"What was her reason?"

"No ring under the tree."

The shuffle of pages and refocused eyes indicate how little attention Tony intends to give this discussion. The one McGee's not finished chewing. Mouse clicks and neck cricks pass before he tries again.

"So she decided it was 'marry you or martyr you?'"

"Some girls are sensitive about the collapse of their holiday expectations."

"But not all of them, right?"

This is the hook in Tony's jaw. Curiosity trumps Gibbs' deadline. "You anticipate the naughty list this year, McRalphie?"

"Don't know about _naughty_."

It turns uncomfortable, exactly as history predicted. DiNozzo's not the sort of dog to release on command and McGee feels the rubber walls of a squeak toy forming around him. Pivoting in his chair, Tony offers an undoctored dose of squirm-inducing stare.

"Because the top of that list is reserved for me, probie."

"You don't think settling down got you a reprieve?"

There are extra LED lights powering Tony's grin wattage. "Santa used a Sharpie."

It's a samurai to behead the conversation, evidenced by the man's definitive swing back to his station. Because Santa's global list is a sticky note compared to the library of dossiers the CIA generously donated. Tony refills his precious stapler like the performing of a sacrament, clocks four glances to his partner's empty desk. Willing her rescue from whatever he's decided that Tim is undertaking.

Approximately nineteen minutes, two coffees and a hit of eye drops later, McGee's clearing his throat. Trying to get spackled words off his plaster tongue. Or at least the first one, which will start with _but_ and go nowhere from there. The throat clearing continues. Tony's drawer is pulled open hard enough to displace the time continuum and a lozenge is sent sailing past Tim's stack of papers. Unneeded, but appreciated as a gesture all the same, McGee is compelled to open the wrapper. A corner at a time, like Charlie Bucket opening a chocolate bar. And now he's thinking in films. Damn.

The crinkle is ongoing and Tony's patience fractures. "Fine. What are you really worried about?"

"That I'll never have another chance."

"And you have one now?" It's a gentle scoff, which gives it no tender landing.

"Not for, you know, the eternal bits. I'm just looking for more than a continuation of the last failure."

"Which you'll suggest somewhere between breakfast and gifts?"

"Ummm... Yes?"

"No."

Mild annoyance has shifted into something colder, an inconvenient crevice obeying in the earthquake and dividing into a bottomless canyon. The cough drop becomes sticky as it waits between the warmth of Tim's fingers.

"You don't pencil in the next level, McKay Jeweler. You don't plot out a timeline and schedule 'let's-get-it-right' at quarter to noon unless there actually _is_ a ring under the tree."

"I wasn't going to set an alarm by it," McGee grumbles.

The bullpen is essentially quiet, if the dozens wandering around the team's designated portion of the seasonally decorated universe are discounted. Which is difficult during sneeze season. Having made a study in all the ways to eavesdrop, it would serve Tim right to have his abysmal chances at romantic success broadcast over the Yard's gossip frequency.

Meanwhile, Tony is coupling the head shake of the disappointed with a series of huffs that breed in the lungs of the married. Expelling demons, disapproval and Dr Ruth. The prickly gift of experience is forthcoming. Tim tries not to meet it with an eye roll.

"Most women," Tony begins, "and trust the man who has dated half the current qualifying population, don't want to be turned into line graphs and pie charts."

Visions of headbanging sugar plums wearing his declaration in molted silver no longer dance in Tim's head. The confection might now be holding picket signs. The dejection on his face would have, in the past, been sufficient to satisfy Tony's need for victorious smugness. Instead, the senior agent simply fiddles with his wedding band.

"Can we clarify that the object of your panic is, in fact, a woman who treasures spontaneity over footwear comfort?"

"The very same," McGee says.

"And you're going to recommend legal permanence without her input and on a holiday not known for zombie hordes? Halloween passed, by the way."

"So?"

"That boat wasn't just missed. It's sitting in dry-dock off the coast."

This notion, without the snark, has certainly occurred to McGee. Usually at three am. The question it will drag from chapped lips signifies that the world has already seen the DiNozzo apocalypse and is still open to negotiation.

"What should I do."

"Sometimes," and here comes that pensive seriousness again. "Sometimes if you're late getting onboard, you gotta jump off the pier after it because once it hits the horizon, the earth goes flat and the ship falls off the edge."

"Did you just compare Abby to a doomed ship?"

From pensive to pissed in a land speed record. "You're trampling my metaphor, probie. I'm just saying, there's no such thing as a window of opportunity. It's a cartoon mouse hole. And it gets smaller with every screw-up so you can't wait until..."

That was a thought heading somewhere personal. Which is why Tony sucks the almost-conclusion down into the safety of silence and throws his eyes back to documents of retinal destruction.

"What just happened?" Asks a desperate man clutching the edge of his seat.

Tony shrugs. "Gumball Machine of Wisdom ran out."

"Refill it," says an interloper. "It was dispensing something interesting."

McGee watches as Ziva takes her seat, neatly arranges her folders and picks up the phone receiver. The day is pushed forward, the case taking shape, taking hours, taking a life. Taking back justice.

Three days before Christmas and at the close of a miraculously short case, McGee's not surprised to catch Ziva depositing an early present on Tony's desk. She could have presented it at home, but they're less about one-upping than meaningful timing these days. It's sweet, yet above reproach. Ziva turns to her observer, tosses out the challenging grin that Tim couldn't reproduce with a diagram and then ventures into her own metaphoric attempt.

"From land, boats appear slow. But do not misjudge their speed. Catch it while it remains in sight."

Tim's not sure it's wise to deflect when Ziva seems determined to make a point. So he avoids slinking off to his chair and instead gives the pitiful doubt voice.

"If it falls off the edge of the world without me?"

"Then make sure you're manning the life boat."

"And if it's a no?"

Something flicks in the dark of her eyes that owes nothing to brightening florescents above, set on a dimmer to appease the environmentalists. It's a trait she and Tony share, the facial shift when private thoughts are trying to go verbal. Like ill-fitting gears gaining inertia and plunging forward.

"We are often called upon to make something of no," she tells Tim. "Yes is not always easier. Ask Tony."

"I would, but his gumball machine's empty."

She glances to the gift on her partner's desk, perfectly wrapped despite the tricky shape.

"I have seen to that issue."

Hope lives in the example they've set, every messy, tangled stretch of it. "You guys did good, you know."

"Because we are experts at making much of _no_."

Ziva's smile is a slow climb, like a sluggish sunrise finding its way. One hand, a dreadfully skilled appendage, lingers involuntarily against her body. At her stomach. Not hovering over the past, McGee realizes, but cradling the future. A yes.

"Really?" Tim whispers.

The elevator chimes behind them. The freight train that is Agent DiNozzo registers the gift, McGee's face and Ziva's hand in a single sweep.

"Ninja sucks at secrets." Tony sits at his desk, traces a finger along the bulbous sphere at the north of his present and then tilts his head at McGee. "You happy to see me or is that a box in your pocket?"

It's three days until Christmas at seven-twenty-six in the morning. The day and time has no significance, lacks a line graph and employs not a zombie horde. Meanwhile, the duo before him are charting a better storyline than Tim could have drafted for their literary counterparts. And the proof of their solidified symbiosis curls just south of Ziva's smile. Even with an unholy host of no, Tony and Ziva have rammed their own yes down destiny's throat. No longer needing the life boat.

McGee grips the oars to get the feel. Maybe it will be no, but it won't be a failure. He'll just have to learn to make something of it. Thus he heads to the lab, a small square weighing down the left side of his pants. On the cuff of his sleeve is placed his beating heart. He trusts Abby not to trample that metaphor.

And he's trusting Santa to add his name to the nice list. In Sharpie.


End file.
